The E-commerce Leader

one of my criteria for do I keep, or do I dare to start a new tech is, first of all, let’s be a little bit more slow to do it. And I’m, I’m only really coming to this point myself now having had too much of the pain of this. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . But also I think some, some tools to your point, are more flexible than others.
and, uh, get good at your plan.

So we’ve talked about what your plan is for 2023. We’ve talked about what your team is for 2023, and the third thing we wanted to talk about was what’s your tool? For 2023. And by toolkit I mean the technology, the business philosophies and tools, uh, even the management strategies that you’re bringing to 20 23 3 to refine what you do and to improve your, your.
System. Um, so tech tools are, are always changing, always fun. Obviously. We had a conversation in, in our last couple podcasts about chat, G P T. Uh, I think we were talking about that three days after it went live. And I was going on and on and you were looking at it with me. Uh, and now, a month later as we record this, the whole world has been captivated by the potential of chat G B T as a tool.

for their toolkit. And many people have talked about, you know, what it means for their e-commerce world, what it means for writers, what it means for white collar workers, on and on and on. Uh, so I guess we were a little bit ahead of the curve, a month ahead of the curve as it relates to that toolkit. Um, but I think it’s a really, really interesting question to ask yourself at the beginning of the year.

Tech tools do I wanna lean into or need to lean into and really master or find someone who’s mastered them. You know, the who, uh, not the how, but if you know the question is whether you learn it yourself or you find somebody, what are the tools that you really leaning to lean into? So what are your thoughts on this one?
Any, uh, anything stand out to you in terms of your tech stack or your, uh, toolkit for 2023? Not any particular tech. In fact, I’m gonna sort of flip this on its head a bit and say, . It’s really important to use the right tools, of course, but I think what I see is in the Mastermind, for example, whenever you mention a specific tool, everyone writes it down.
When you’re talking about mindset or strategies, people are poking at their phones and checking emails. So I think my experience of the value is kind of inversely proportionate to that, which is to say, of course, the right tech tools are important. . But if you’re using a tool because somebody said this is really cool, then you are being dragged into acting on the basis of the marketing team of that tool.

And it may or may not happen to serve you. That’s fairly random. So you are a tool , you are a tool of the tech company. Yeah. . So, I mean, it’s, it’s obvious, but it sounds obvious. But we live in a world where obviously the, the best pay, you know, people in the world, in the world of. E-commerce and some of the smartest people in the world, full stop, have been spending a lot of time and energy trying to engage you and keep you engaged in using some kind of online tool.

Facebook and YouTube swing to mine is the most extreme examples, but even Helium 10 or fussing about, you know, the latest, you know, is Chat GPT gonna revolution mine is my copywriting and stuff. Yeah, maybe. But if you don’t have a clarity of who you’re trying to reach, why, where it comes in your funnel, that kind of stuff, then it still isn’t gonna help as much as it could.
So I would say, um, the, the strategies and the mindsets need to come before the tools, and that’s easy to say and hard to do because it’s constantly being seduced consciously, and people are doing it for a reason. And you have to just stand back from that. I. , you’re constantly in the real world of competitive marketing for your mindshare being plugged into someone else’s agenda.
Exactly. So, yeah, beautifully put. Yeah. So you’ve gotta have your agenda first before you open your computer. I think Tim Ferris said it in, in the four hour work week. He said so many things succinctly and well, um, years ago. And he said something like, before you open your computer, make sure you got a list of why you’re getting in there in the first place.
Mm-hmm. . I think that’s very wise when it comes to tactiles, really. Yeah, I totally agree. Uh, and you know, there are so many. We get roped into, or, you know, shiny object syndrome and it’s like, oh, this could be amazing. I’ll, I’ll sign up for the $29 a month level of this. That seems like a good deal. And you know, nine months later, we don’t even remember what it was or why we’re paying.

Can’t even find a way to cancel the monthly subscription because, We don’t even remember the, the billing name doesn’t match the tool name or whatever. Yep. , absolutely. How many of us have been there? ? Yeah. It’s really important. That’s, that kind of ties in with the start, stop, keep list. I think it’s really good.

I mean, I don’t do this anything like, as often as I should, but whenever I sit down and I keep this super primitive, so I can’t wriggle out of it, I just download my, my main, um, current account that’s linked with the tech tools I spend and some people use credit cards. Mm-hmm. , um, and just look at it and go, do I need.

and a lot of the time is no. And sometimes I can drop down a level or I can just phone up my phone company and threaten to leave and they’ll cut my bill in half. And th those kinds of things can save you an awful lot of overhead. So, okay. Every six months I would say absolutely necessary for any ecosystem.

Fair point. So the first question is, review your list of tech tools and eliminate things that you’re not using before you add anything else. Absolutely. And then also, you know, obviously re re-look at what you do. That are for your paid tools and whether they can serve you well. And there are so many trade-offs where we have a tool, for example, I’ll just use a specific example.
We have a tool like Cajabi and then we wanna do a new thing. And we’re like, wow, maybe we should use Think IIC or Teachable or on and on and on and on. You know, maybe we should use ClickFunnels for that. Maybe we should use whatever it is. And the reality is, a lot of times our existing tech stack can servee the purpose of our new project.

We just haven’t thought through, you know, slack. Uh, a, a good example of this, you know, there’s a million team and productivity tools and every time a team member wants to start a new project, sometimes if, if you, you’re not disciplined as a group, you know, they can be like, let’s use this tool for managing this thing.

I’m like, wait, we’re not introducing a new tool just cause we have to manage something. And so, you know, these, uh, these team. A group productivity, uh, you know, management softwares can get quickly outta hand. That’s just as one example. Um, but the bigger question is, are you doing something new that requires a new tech stack or a new approach?

And, uh, and, and I think that’s the interesting question, and if, if that’s true, it begs the second question, which is, you know, who do you learn it from? Mm-hmm. , where do you get your, your knowledge and insight and that kind of thing. I think you’re right. And the more I think about this and the more, I think you should be pretty slow to ad tech just as you would with an employee, including free stuff because, um, apart from your time and energy as you just implied, there’s a big learning curve for pretty much anything.

That’s a very powerful tool. And, um, there’s the financial overhead as well, but then there’s the interactivity between all of them, all of which reminds you of, there’s Seth Godin thing of project debt. I mean, you get a project debt when you have 10 people working on a project and you add five to them to get it to go quicker and it slows down, for example.
And I think you get a, a version of that with tech as well. If you have 10 different tech systems instead of three, you’ve either gotta get them to talk to each other, which is always lots of fun. Not, or you’ve gotta, you know, get good at using 10 different systems and you’ve gotta. , um, you know, data from one to the other.

So I would say one of my criteria for do I keep, or do I dare to start a new tech is, first of all, let’s be a little bit more slow to do it. And I’m, I’m only really coming to this point myself now having had too much of the pain of this. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . But also I think some, some tools to your point, are more flexible than others.
Could you, Kajabi, if you’re in this sort of membership type space? Yeah. Slack is even communication. I’ve found Airtable to be the most flexible tool, so I prefer it to Trello or Asana. or click up, but it really doesn’t matter which of those you use as long as you use one rather than, as you said, three across a team of five, which is so common.

I’ve had that and I’ve just basically kind of banned that now cuz it just gets too confusing. Yeah, you don’t realize what’s happening and it kind of sneaks up on your eye. Like, wait, we’re in like 19 different softwares to do this like two step business process. Yes. It’s so easy to do that. And yeah, the thing is, I would say it’s worth really reviewing.
I mean, sort of from a strategic point of view. It’s funny how much there is behind this. This tech choice isn’t there, there’s so much going on with it. Um, I would say it’s worth looking at your processes and seeing what tools you can cut. Not necessarily because 29 bucks a month is so much, although it adds up.

But because if you can cut complexity, it’s simpler to teach somebody, it’s easier to find somebody. They don’t have to be an amazingly clever person to work two softwares as opposed to 10. , it’s uh, fewer processes, so therefore less that can go wrong, you know? So there’s an awful lot of upside from cutting things and simplifying things and I think tech stacks are always one of those things I always look at.

And after a while I think this is horrendous. We need to cut this. And I’ve got quite a few things thinking about it that. , they’re quite refined in the sense we’ve done a lot of them in the podcast particularly. But on the other hand, um, they’re probably over complex. I partly know that’s cuz I’m an overcomplex kind of guy and mm-hmm.

If you know that you are that person, yeah. You’ve gotta simplify more frequently than other people would, I guess. Yeah, no, I think that’s totally right. And, and with all that said, however, The internet is creating new technology tools that solve problems and do new things for us at a pace that’s just insane.

Uh, the, the, the thing that I think is the ra valid and rational search for new tech is the answer to this question. What am I spending a lot of time or money on? That there is a technologist solution for that. I am not aware. And that to me is the really profound question because you know, we’ve all been in this circumstance where it’s like, man, I spent three hours doing this thing.
And then you talk to somebody else and they’re like, there’s an app for that. It takes 10 seconds. Like, wait, what? The old way takes four hours and I have to have an expensive software. P you know, thing to do it. And the new way, there’s an app and it’s just a push button. Simple, you know, outcome. There’s always ki those kind.

Scenarios and the the reality is we need to be in conversation with, uh, birds of a feather, you know, that are doing the right, the similar types things, going to the conferences or whatever so that we can stay current so that we optimize our time and our, our money. Uh, is the, is the main reason why in my mind we do need to be on the hunt for new tech tools, uh, because there is just constant solution space that’s emerging for these problem.

Um, and yeah, that’s the piece to me that is the. Yeah. Of anticipation and searching and finding and trying out these new, new tools is that, um, hope and it’s reality frequently that you can save time. Yeah. Or you can save money, you know? Definitely. Uh, I mean, I think, uh, about this, again, coming back to the idea of investing that you, um, mentioned before, I think having an investor mindset is great.

Uh, uh, I think Warren Buffett, this is the extreme version that Warren Buffett said. If you had a car and you could punch it 10 times in your life, and that would be it for each investment you’ve made, you’d make pretty. Thoughtful investment decisions. And I’m not saying we should go that far, um, but I do think if you force yourself to slow down for a second and, and ask that excellent question that you put, which I think is what am I spending a lot of time or money on that I has a tech that could save this or there’s an app for that?

Really great question and I think as long as you. Have really been mindful about choosing your tech rather than grabbing everything that’s out there or grabbing everything that’s out there for a limited period and then throwing everything that’s at the one thing out of the, out of the way. If you’ve got a free trial or whatever, then that’s an excellent approach because then over time you’re right, there is more and more automation that will take care of stuff.

Um, yeah, it’s just that always conscious of that. , so tempting and easy to add it. There you go. So maybe we’re a little bit on the opposite sides of the fence, which by the way is a good reason to have a team. If you’ve got one person who’s really ProTech and the other person’s a bit anti, then you’ll end up with a really balanced, uh, company in the middle, I think.
Yeah, that’s a good reason to have a cfo, f o or someone who serves as a cfo f o role in your business. For, for our charity, we have a C F O That is such an amazing. An asset to the organization. And one of the things she does is just constantly ask that question, what are these expenses? You know, she’s asked me about this one subscription for about nine months, which is why I was saying that thing a few minutes ago that you were laughing at, which is, I, I have this recurring $9 charge.

And she’s asked me cuz she just wondered what it was. But, uh, I can’t find how to cancel it. And uh, so yeah, I was laughing because I’ve had the same experience so many times. I go through my stuff. What is this? $9 and then it’s on PayPal, which doesn’t help. And then you look at that and you go, well, there’s some company I’ve never heard of.

And you Google the company . Yeah. It’s a mystery, right? Am I really canceling this credit card and getting a new one just so I can kill this ? Well, funnily enough that that is one approach if you wanna be more radical, if you want to sort of assume discontinuity and fight for continuity. Mm-hmm. , uh, one friend of mine who’s a very successfully commerce, uh, operator, has a credit card that he uses for all of his.

Um, subscriptions and every six months he cancels the credit card. So all of them stop. And of course, you know, that sounds horrific, but what happens is all of them will get in touch with you and say, oh, you’ve got a subscription stopped. Did you know mm-hmm. , and by the way, we got this extra special deal.

So you’ll certainly hear about it and, you know, if you’ve had your wallet stolen, had to cancel your cards, you’ve had the same experience. So he, he induces that kind of tech heart attack in his business every six months, which is hard. Really? His CFO is probably pretty happy about that. I. Yeah. Or the other side of the coin is the ones that you are actively using on a daily, weekly basis.
You’ll be like, oh wait, I gotta set this one back up. It’s about exactly. It forces you to make a decision again, that was otherwise automatic, which is, by the way, the, the flip side of why you should have a subscription business is why you should be very careful about having subscriptions yourself. Right.

They’re seductive and dangerous things. So we’ve wandered into the toolkit space that I wanted to talk about for a couple minutes, which is beyond tech, and that is the toolkits of mindset. And the toolkit of management strategies. And I think there’s very interesting things that we can, um, add to our, you know, overall toolkit in these areas.

And, you know, the philosophies and, and strategies, um, are an area where I think we, the, it begs the question, who is your mentor? Who are you learning from? Are you a. Generally, and who are you a student of or from? And that I think that toolkit is one to really focus on at the beginning of the year. Like who am I gonna learn from in 2023?

What is their philosophy or approach to, you know, uh, to work? Now, you know, you’ve already in this conversation mentioned, uh, Michael Gerber Emith. You mentioned Tim Ferris. I mentioned Robert Kiosaki. You know, these are, these are, you know, those are 15, 20, 30 year old books that are in essence def facto mentors or philosophy, uh, experts.

Have kind of hung our hat on and, and, and built businesses around. And the question I would have is, who are those new people now in our life for 2023 that we would say, I’m gonna learn this new thing from this new person because he’s right or she’s right about this thing that I’m weak in and I wanna level up my trade craft.

As a manager, an investor, uh, you know, whatever it is, a writer, like what, you know, whatever the thing might be. Um, and I think that’s an important track to rundown and think about. Um, and then the other thing that’s associated with that is management strategies. Are there techniques or approaches to your big plan that are, uh, you know, strategies you can employ and learn from people to, you know, how to implement?

So what are your thoughts on those? Any, any, uh, ideas as it relates to 2023 for your. New philosophies or mentors or that kind of thing? Um, I think first of all, um, I just wanna say how much I agree. I think, um, we kind of backed into this, as you said, from talking about tactiles, the, the. , the use of a tech tool forces you to think, why am I doing this?

Which forces you to think sometimes, oh, I don’t know. And in fact, I don’t have a framework for answering the question why, which implies to me that as a lack of, uh, strategy and peop the word strategy gets u overused. I mean, people use it to mean what I think of as a tactic. Like how do you know what’s the strategy for getting some more traffic to your Amazon listing?
Well, that’s not a strategy, that’s a tactic unless it’s a. Big, big wholesale sort of picture. Um, so it’s an overused word, but underappreciated. I don’t think it means a strategic plan, I think it means a blend of like philosophy, but inaction, something like that. Um, so, um, for example, and this came up the other day at the Mastermind, um, , are you going to go and try and dominate every space you’re in or are you gonna make it work being in the middle?
Are you gonna be very, very aggressive and get a lot of funding and investment? I’m one of the guys in the Mastermind yo
u have about, you know, just got a half a million. Pounds about, um, whatever, $600,000 loan secured in his house, and that canceled a success for him. And then somebody else has just sold 40% of their business for about half a million euros.
That’s a success for him. So those are, if you like, different philosophies. And I think those are, that’s one, it’s really, when you’re making big decisions like that, it’s really important to talk to. to mentors and I would say people who’ve done it before, but also sometimes people who have a knack for looking at things in a certain way.

And I guess sometimes people outside of the e-commerce business, but who have a good investor might set, might be useful people to talk to. So, um, my answer to the question of who to talk to over time is, um, If you’ve got a big decision, run it past multiple different types of people as well. In fact, more than one mentor, really.
Yeah, sure. No, I love that. Um, yeah, so this is, I think this is something really important for people to think about. For 2023. Um, my toolkit for 2023 for what I’m gonna try to achieve includes, The strategic or effective use of book launches. I’m gonna lean into that more and more. Got one coming up next few weeks for my new book about, uh, our charity work.

Um, challenges is one that we’ve done in the past and that we’re gonna continue to lean into, um, online courses is one that I’m excited about to continue to, you know, refine that. That’s been what we’ve done since 2000 and. 16, I guess, is online courses. Um, the others that are top of mind for me are, uh, paid advertising techniques, particularly on Amazon.

Um, and, um, and leaning into podcasts more. And getting better and better at podcasts. Um, I want to create podcast conversations with new folks that are interview-based, and I think it, it’ll be probably for our charity in the charity space, but it’ll be interview-based podcasts and then be out there on podcast more.

So that’s something I haven’t really done. At all, but we just have this conversation. Um, and then our, our, our four person conversation with Kyle and Chris. But to me, uh, leaning into podcast more for 2023 is a key part of it in that new way. Yeah. Yeah, and of course, who you, I, I met you because you came on an amazing FBA podcast as a guest at what, three, four years ago now.
So that goes to show how relationships spin off from podcasts. I, I have to say, I would advise a lot of people to have a podcast, not because of what it appears to be, which is having an audience, but because of the people you can attract, because of having an audience and the interviews you get, I mean, like with you, you know, you just learn so much from smart people if you are in that, that space.

So that, Just one of the many reasons to be a podcaster, in my opinion. Um, yeah, for me, I don’t, haven’t really defined very clearly yet what I’m, um, a lot of the detail on what I’m doing this year. I’m sort of feel behind the curve, but I think one of the things I want to do is kind of the, the very obvious, which is to recognize that the world, which was very.

Offline in terms of the bus, the business meetings I ran and then went entirely online during the pandemic. The sort of new working pattern is reflected in how willing people are to come to, to London and, and turn up for things. And so I need to get a sort of hybrid of online and offline in a blend that works financially, but also in terms of, um, the feeling for the, the convenience of online versus the, you know, energy of offline.

And so that’s a blend that I need to work. , um, which in a way I’ve been working on for several years, so I need to refine that blend. Um, so that’s kind of a weird mixture of online and offline tools. That’s more of a strategy than a tool set, I guess. Yeah. And then, yeah, book launching for me, I mean, you’re, you’re coming more into podcasting.

Happy to chat to you about how to do interviews, having done maybe a thousand by now, but, um, not that you necessarily wanna do it the same way I have. . And then, yeah, for me, getting books out there is something that’s been on the agenda for about three years and somehow I’ve never cleared the space for it, and this year needs to be the one that I’m gonna do that.
I’m saying this in January, 2023. It’s publicly recorded, so I guess I could listen back at the end of 2023. Let’s see if I’ve been true to that or not, but I real really feel that’s very overdue for me. So book launches definitely for me as well. Well, I’d encourage you in that regard, and I think I have over the.

Of course of those last few years, encourage you to go for the gusto on the books. Um, it continues to be something that I just, I’m passionate about it and I think if you’re a writer, you write and, uh, that’s it. If you, if that’s your inclination is to, to be a writer, then it’s never been a better time to publish books and have that be.

You know, legion source and revenue source and on and on and on. And so, yeah, that’s one of the things that I’m continuing to be passionate about. That’s the kind of work that hasn’t gotten old to me. Uh, my first book came out 10 years ago, Pinterest Power with McGraw Hill. And, uh, I remember vividly where I was and the activities associated with that book coming out when I got my literal hands on the first copy from the publisher.

And 10 years later, that’s. Exciting to me and still fun. And so yeah, if that’s something that is of interest, I’ve never taught book launches or book marketing, but it is fun and I really enjoy it. So I encourage anybody to, uh, to go after that goal. Um, and so I think in summary, I would just say to conclude the conversation here, your 2023 is what you make it.

Let’s not be, uh, passive victims. The economy might. There will be troubles of many varieties, I’m sure, both in the US and in the uk. But uh, the game is ours to play. And if we bring an effective plan to it and build a team to implement that plan and then build out our toolkit, we’re gonna succeed together.

And I would encourage everybody to lean into those ideas for 2023. So, Michael, any concluding. No, I don’t wanna mess with that Beautiful conclusion. I think you put it very, very well. Um, 20 of 23 is what you make of it. Um, the game is definitely asked to play and the only thing I would add is just to reiterate what I said, which is GDP growing or shrinking is just a massive generalization which hides multiple problem areas and multiple opportunity areas.

And so, um, You’ve just gotta find the opportunity areas and dig away into those haven’t. Yeah, I think that, and you’ve gotta be very determined, I think is the other thing. Like if everyone’s running around like chicken little and you are just keeping going and focused in a way, there’s never been a better time to be in business.

Um, oh, for sure. A hundred percent agree. Say, but yeah. Yeah. So yeah, great conversation, man. Really enjoyed it and, and it’s great to hear what your plans are and what you are stopping and starting. And, um, so the final thing is just to say to anyone listening, thank you so much for your support. Um, while download numbers are, are gently, but steadily going up over time, which is fantastic to see.

So don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Spotify, apple or, or Google, wherever it else is, you can find it. And, uh, we’ll keep working hard to bring you the best advice to help you be the best e-commerce leader you can.
Cool. Love it.