Growing a Brand on Shopify with Caulen Foster from Brainpower Agency - Part 2

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Things we discussed in this session:

A. Part 1

B. Part 2

Things we mention in this session of Seller Round Table:

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Transcription in this episode:

[00:00:01] spk_0: Welcome [00:00:02] spk_1: to the seller roundtable e commerce coaching and business strategies with and er, not and amy Wiis. [00:00:08] spk_0: Mm hmm. [00:00:10] spk_1: And [00:00:10] spk_0: you give me an example of the up cells and the follow ups that were being done on your, on your email follow ups. And you were saying that you also want to look at your up cells and your add ons And really target them to the customer. I think you gave me an example of somebody was selling a really expensive item and they were giving away like a $1 journal or something. [00:00:37] spk_1: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. 100%. I know exactly what you're talking about. Yes. So what what I was saying was, is when you, when you're purchasing, like when you so when you're building a landing page, right? When you're building, let's say an acquisition page, like we just talked about you want to have we use those as entry points for for segmentation, right? We know that people who entered this land through this landing page probably ascribed to this kind of message and this, they're probably follow this audience, Right? So what we do is we make sure that the offers and the post purchase offers, the messaging, everything we develop or that customer is catered to. That customer are offers on the back end. If somebody, you know, let's say you're selling us to supplement, right? If if you sold a pro, if you sold somebody uh maybe a higher quality, higher price protein powder, you probably don't want to go and have a shaker bottle at, you know, as your main up sell uh seven days down the road. You know, you want to you don't want to have a generic post purchase process. You want to make sure that everybody is kind of getting their own respective message, right? So that it resonates with them. Because when you try and sell to everybody, you sell to nobody. You know? So it's really about making sure that and this is like it's just really about being considerate. I think about when you when you think about think about somebody coming into your actual store, I imagine you own a storefront and you have somebody that comes in and they buy something and then they make this purchase and then you take them to some other completely area of the store and try and sell them stuff over there that has nothing to do with what they just purchased right? Like somebody comes to buy floral stuff from Home Depot and you go take them to the Saws and Hammers, right? It just it doesn't make sense, right? It's just if we don't think of it like that because we're, you know, we're in the digital space sometimes, but it's really that simplistic when you think about it, like tell people what they want to be sold, not what you want to sell them, right? And that's a big thing that like a lot of people like it's not what you want to sell, it's what people want to buy. [00:02:32] spk_0: Yeah, and I loved how you did, you know you took and this is a great idea for all of you listeners out there, you know you took a single supplement and you presented it with three or four different landing pages, same supplement, but this one was for hiking, it was like the hiking supplement, you were really speaking to the hiker right? And then this one over here was for like the hardcore bodybuilder, right? [00:03:00] spk_1: And [00:03:00] spk_0: so you're not going to try and sell the hardcore bodybuilder accessories to the hiker who's more interested in endurance and everything like that, so I love and any one of us could practice that with any of our products. We could create multiple landing pages with different messages that are targeted towards different types of customers and customers who are on different journeys in their lives, right? And we can or we could look at all the pain points that our customers have and have a landing page for each pain point, Right? And then cross uh and then your follow up messages also continued to target that same customer. So you not only built multiple landing pages, but you also built multiple follow up sequences that were personalized for that customer. So I just think that is just so smart. And then by the time you're done, what you've done is you've basically built out this whole infrastructure of where they can plug in their next products and they kind of know that the process for that. So that's just awesome. I love that you do that and I think that it's a great tip for all of our listeners to sell your product to multiple different customers but make sure that you're targeting them separately and not trying to hey if you're a hiker biker or a hardcore weightlifter like this is for everyone [00:04:24] spk_1: and that was one thing I didn't mention, I don't think I touched on enough in the research process is, you know, learn who your customer is. You know, go into, go into forums, go into um, you know, anywhere where your customers are discussing things, Facebook groups like just go in there. You don't have to, you know, you're not there to spam anybody are just there to read and just consume, you know, Amy, I think I told you I spend more time at amazon events than I do Shopify events because I'm trying to learn my customer. I'm trying to learn like what are the pain points that they have? What are the challenges. That's how I've learned all the things that I can go back and forth with you on and what I'm hearing because I'm hearing it from actual cellars. Um So that's one thing is just really go deep on learning who your customers and how to speak to them. We have a we have a section in our discovery sheet. It's called vernacular. Like what are words that they use that these people specifically use because if you don't speak like them, you know, you can't sell to them. Um So that was just one thing to to you know use and then one last tip that we use on landing pages. Um Because this is really good in relation what you said about how like how things, how messaging, um how messaging changes, right? Think of it like this when we sell a product, right? We don't we don't want to just compare things for the purposes of comparison. So we're gonna, I'm talking about comparison charts, right? So with comparison charts, most people think you're comparing features and benefits, right? You're just comparing it to what we found. Comparison charts are actually very powerful for product and market positioning. So what I mean by that is, let's say, you know, I have my protein brand, right? So let's say, I want to position my product and my messaging when I'm messaging to somebody, whoever that audiences. If I have a a comparison chart and I want to message somebody who does like plant based protein, like Vegas, Sun warrior, all these great brands, you know, that we compete against, right? Um, then that's what, but what if I want to brand my product as a breakfast product? Right. Well, what if I have a landing page with the breakfast product now, I'm not comparing to them now. I'm comparing to ensure our nation slim fast. Right now. I've I've now like subliminally, but also explicitly place my my product in a specific place where my customers, my customer can understand what it is, Right? So when you build, use comparison charts because they don't just, they don't just set out features and benefits and you can use those features and benefits, but use them in relation to what the market is talking about in that segment. You know, if you're going to compare a lot product to another latte, compare it to Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts and if you're doing a healthier product, something like that just I know that it makes a huge difference on our pages is comparison charts. So that would be one that's too, [00:07:06] spk_0: I love that. And I mean that ties back into that replacement, right? Like what are you replacing, [00:07:11] spk_1: replacing? It makes it explicit, [00:07:14] spk_0: Love it. [00:07:15] spk_1: So [00:07:16] spk_0: let's get back to basics. You do such an amazing job building out. Shopify is you're building out monster sites and really helping people through every area of the final. What you're doing is very, very, very professional level. So let's get back to basics for those brands that are just starting out and considering Shopify. Um what do you think about Shopify in terms of like, when should I have more than just a placeholder gauge for my brand? When do I start throwing some eggs into the Shopify back? [00:07:49] spk_1: Great, Great, great question. So, I think, I think that that really is um I think it's kind of universal when it comes to the answer to, that is kind of universal when it comes to a lot of the sales channels that we work with. Right? So I always tell people if you're selling, let's say you get a guy like me before I got involved in the amazon shop five fifties. Um, I was telling on Shopify, right? And I'm selling on Shopify and I'm running traffic from facebook and facebook is doing okay. It's not doing, its not doing stellar. It's, it's kind, but, but I haven't given up on it yet. Right. I probably don't want to go and take capital from, from there and allocated to another traffic source to then do another mediocre job with another traffic source. I won't want to master this source first. Right? Like my facebook acquisition is doing very well. My cps are healthy. My traffic isn't super expensive, which is hard and you know, these days of facebook, but nonetheless it's, it's converting at a very efficient level. I can, I can sustain this right? When I hit that level. That's when I'm willing to pivot, you know, in, in traffic sources. But I want to go and run traffic from youtube and google. You better believe that my facebook and instagram traffic is either I'm either using it or I'm not using my phone up. I'm either using, I'm either using it or I'm not using it. Right? So if I'm using facebook, I'm going all in. If I'm not using, then I'll go somewhere else. So, um, it's kind of up to, you know, an amazon seller when it comes to that. Have you really gotten to where you feel like you have a good grasp on customer acquisition? You know, how, you know, how much are people purchasing your product? What are your sales monthly? Do you feel that you're doing? I guess we never all have it figured out right. Like if we all had it figured out, we probably wouldn't be listening um, to podcasts, right? So we're always trying to learn, but I do feel like there's a certain point where we understand like, hey, okay, I'm ready to make this transition. I'm ready to go horizontal into another traffic source and allocate revenue there because that is another thing. In order to get data, you have to spend money [00:09:46] spk_0: and you're gonna [00:09:46] spk_1: need data. Yeah, [00:09:48] spk_0: that's the same thing that I tell people about just moving to other channels are expanding internationally on amazon. It's like, okay, well do you have where your primary sales channels are right now? Do you have that figured out? Are you understanding how much money you're making at, what your turnover is, How to stay in stock, your logistic, all of those things like it's good to have a good system built for that before all of a sudden because every new channel you move into and Shopify is no different, especially when you want to sell on your own website, you are driving the traffic now. Right? And so you got to go bring traffic to your page. So before you, it's not a set it and forget it kind of thing, nor is amazon nor is walmart nor any of the channel. So we really do have to take the time to kind of get to know our channels and make sure that we're profitable. We're scalable. And then when we know we're profitable and we're scalable, we go, okay, well let's look at Shopify or let's look at adding walmart or let's look at adding an international amazon, you know, channel whatever it is, like focus on the one thing at a time back to your comparison chart, Marshall has a question. She said, what if there are very few comparable products? So what if it's a new never seen before product or there's very few comparable products? Do you have a tip there? [00:11:14] spk_1: So, so let me ask you, so do you have anything that you're replacing currently? Like is there is there a product that we're replacing? [00:11:22] spk_0: Yes, I believe so. With her product, there are because she is replacing the need for things like hand sanitizer and stuff like that. [00:11:31] spk_1: So I would probably put like I would do whatever I can replace. I would, I would probably you and I, you called it out right away. Like usually what you're replacing or what you're improving upon is going to be in in that comparison chart. So if you're if you're going to even though it might not be hand sanitizer, right? You might not even be selling hand sanitizer. That's okay because you're just you're just giving it in, you're putting it in a position for the consumers are saying, okay, I don't need hand sanitizer anymore, because I have this product and here's why it's better, right? The better is like the bonus the better is the the actual comparison part of the comparison chart is the cherry on top what it really does. It shows the consumer what they're replacing and then it tells them why they're replacing it. [00:12:12] spk_0: And when I think about Marsha's product, I think not only does it replace the need for things like hand sanitizer and also replace the need for a lot of health supplements that you might be taking to constantly stay healthy because you know so you can say like look at all these things you can throw, you think of that old as seen on tv commercials like go ahead in the trash, throw that in the trash. I [00:12:35] spk_1: always say there's a little bit of as seen on T. V. And like you know facebook advertising and you know like using special acquisition offers. But wait there's more kind of deal with up cells. You just you just got to make it kind of classy, right? You gotta make it, it's got to be tasteful, it can't be like to sales here else you get really deep into like the you know kind of like pushy salesman tactic. [00:12:57] spk_0: Got it. Okay so let's talk about comparison sales now. As far as websites, web platforms go tell me about what do you like about shop of five versus other e commerce platforms? Like woo commerce for example. [00:13:12] spk_1: Sure. Yeah. Well I love I when I first started getting into commerce, I was I was building on woo commerce and Wordpress, so I wasn't building, but I was hiring people so I was pretty familiar with the platform and I don't have anything against it. Right? Like I think it's a good platform. We build some of the business owners that we work with, they do have a woo commerce and they want to stay there. So it has its advantages. One of the things that I really like about Shopify is just the ease of use. You know, it's got apps, you know, it does, it does some of these apps they can get a little, you know, just being a fair comparison, they can get a little costly, you know, they have after you have 10 different apps that you're using. But just just the fact that it's so easy to use, you know, it's just it sinks everything just links right up to it. [00:13:58] spk_0: I love how the dashboard is. Just so see if you can look at your facebook ads and your conversions and everything from your Shopify dashboard, which I was like, wow, you know, we did a Shopify course in our mastermind group and It really made me want to switch from commerce shop because I was like then but then you've got the nickel and diming right where it's like, 01 more app letting our costs are up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, right? You're [00:14:27] spk_1: spending a couple, you can spend, you know, it's not hard to get to a couple of foul. It's not, you have to be doing volume at that point. I wouldn't think that a smaller stores doing Couple 1000 of our cities, but you know, a couple 100 bucks is not unreasonable. If you've got a couple of pretty decent apps that are really important, you [00:14:44] spk_0: know? Yeah. Yeah, [00:14:47] spk_1: it's just an easier platform in my opinion. Like you said the metrics, you can, you can plug it. There's a lot of really good apps that work with like lifetime value. There's a company called lifetime when I'm going to give them some free premiere. But there it's a great app gives you lots of LTV information about your customer. We use it on all of our projects, dashboards, data source. You know, there's a lot of cool things you can do it on Shopify, it's cooler. [00:15:11] spk_0: Yes, it's better for this is cool. I like it. Yeah. [00:15:17] spk_1: Right. Right. [00:15:17] spk_0: Well Cohen I would love to talk a little bit more about because the last time I talked to you, we were talking about what you do for brands. So your company um takes on certain brands and you basically grow out there. Shopify channel for them. And it's not it's not like a I wouldn't say it's um it's not like you're not building someone's first Shopify site. People are not coming to you to build their first Shopify site. What you're doing is taking brands that are true private labels. They have a differentiated product. They have those four aspects that we talked about and you can really build great funnels for and you're building them an asset, You are doing the job for them and you're building them an asset. So talk about what kinds of brands that you work with, because I'm sure there are a lot of brands in our listener group that are thinking like, wow, I would love somebody to take over my Shopify and just manage it for me and grow it for me, but talk a little bit about the type of brands that you work with and what you guys do for them, [00:16:28] spk_1: totally. Yeah, So, well, you know, the first thing that we always do is we, whenever we, you know, bring on a new brand, the first thing we do is we meet with, you know, the founder and Ceo whoever is in charge there and um we look at the product, we look at the product together, they'll they'll send it to me and um I usually if it's if it's, you know, a smaller product, I usually just ask that gets sent to me so I can try and use it, you know, if if it's something that I can use it to house product or food product or something I always like to touch, feel see um and get an experience for what the product looks like. Um So we typically work with you know consumer packaged goods, lots of CPG s. We're very familiar with supplements, we have quite a few you know clients in the supplement space. Um That's why I also really like to work with um problem solving products. You know like direct to consumer problem solving something that solves big problems um and desirable problems people that definitely need these problems solved. That's something that we want to look for. Um More or less when we when we're looking at businesses were also taking into account not just new opportunities that exist on the product side but what also can exist as a product or are an industry authority side, right? Because there's sometimes um where you'll find products that maybe aren't as unique, right? Like maybe you don't have something that's super, super unique. But what you do hasn't, what you do have is the opportunity of an opening in the market where there's no DTC authority because there's a difference between a standard and an authority, right? Like you can have a company that sells a specific product and maybe people just use because that's all there is there. But if there's no direct to consumer authority in the space, you actually have a new opportunity for the market, which is to claim that you are the authority and we are the go to source because well, I'll do research product research when somebody gives me a product, I'll see where it's being sold, Right? Is it only being sold through online distribution and online marketplaces if it's only being sold on online? Like, people think that that's a bad thing. I actually think it's a good thing because that means that tells me there's nobody directly connecting with the customer, like there's nobody who's directly saying like this is a great opportunity for you to deal with the authority in the space and we're gonna be here for you when you need help because you're gonna need help. You can go to Home Depot and get everything that you can get directly from a brand. You can't get that close that closeness. So we look for that opportunity as well. Is there an opportunity to be an authority in the space? Is there anybody competing with you in the D. C. Space? So? Well that's another thing that we look at. Um And then you know obviously we look at when it comes to just the brands that we work with in the relationships we like to build, because I think that's something that a lot of people don't want to say it's a challenge. But you know, in e commerce, you there's definitely no shortage of like horror stories that people have heard, right? Like we've heard, we've all heard them all right? Like I worked with somebody and then they just like ran facebook ads from and they ran them into the ground. Like we've all heard it, right? So the number one thing that I always tell people when, when we work together is that we want you to understand that this is going to be uh you're investing in infrastructure first. So I always like to analogize it to a restaurant, right? If you wanted to open up a restaurant right after owning, you know, maybe a nice profitable food truck and you want to go and build a restaurant, right? You're gonna have to pay for the restaurant, gonna have to pay for the waiters are gonna pay for the, for the, for the management, you're gonna have to pay for all that and then you're gonna have to pay the market the business, right? So it has to be somebody who understands that. This is not like his, you know, we don't want people to think that this is a get rich quick, like we don't, that's not really how it works. This is somebody really wanting to invest in infrastructure, take their brand to the next level and say, I want to build an asset for my business because eventually I'd like to, you know, go past. Maybe they don't want to just do the aggregator thing with amazon right? They want to go and get acquired by a major brand. So you know, that's now that becomes an asset because now you're collecting data, we need, we like to work with people who understand like, hey, we're not saying you're not gonna get results, we actually, we literally guarantee sales, but it's not at first we're getting data, we're getting, we're getting your assets built and we're putting together the infrastructure you need to actually sell. So I think psychologically, um, one of the things we look for is just that preparedness to say, hey, I'm ready to go from Point A to POINT B and, and I'm willing to build this so good product potential for being an authority in the space and the mindset that you're going to be investing in building an asset, not just building a piece of real estate on a marketplace, you know? [00:21:01] spk_0: Right? Exactly. Yeah, I love that. Well, thank you for sharing that. I'm down to my last two questions. [00:21:08] spk_1: Nice [00:21:09] spk_0: from a business perspective and even a personal growth perspective, what are some things that you're reading listening to, that kind of thing that keep you motivated? [00:21:20] spk_1: Cool. So, um I'm reading, I'm reading a book I'm actually reading and I don't I don't want to sound like I'm like, you know, I'm reading three books, but I'm not like I don't always do that. It's just like, that just happened recently that I got three books sent to me at the same time. So I'm reading this book called Influence, um which is just a really amazing book about B two B. You know, being a dDc, I've been selling DDC and you know, selling direct to consumer and then with the agency space to get a little bit more involved in B two B. And it's just a great book about value, providing value and how you can how you can use value as a true asset in business. And that's to me is like that's like my always my number one goal is to provide value to people before anything. Um So influence um my business partner actually gave me a book today called The obstacle Is the way which I'm reading currently, it's pretty decent and um other than that you know we're just constantly trying to push myself like I really am like I'm constantly I'm constantly trying to push to see what the next level looks like you know and see where I can get better especially in and you know obviously as a parent and have kids and stuff but you know professionally I really like to push the threshold you know like how much better can I get you know and how much more can I learn? I'm always reading I mean we have something at the agency A. B. L. Always be learning and we're literally like obsessed with learning. So that's that's kind of how I keep busy and obviously you know personal life, you know kids and jim and [00:22:41] spk_0: and coming to see us and prosper. So we're going to see they're so excited to see you again. I saw you in Miami, so it's good we'll be seeing you at prosper and maybe a day of the empowering Women's conference, it'll be [00:22:56] spk_1: awesome. [00:22:57] spk_0: So awesome. Well the last thing is how can people get in touch with you? [00:23:03] spk_1: Oh great. So yeah I'm very easy. Of course of course my dog starts barking right when I go to tell people how they can get in touch with me. How funny is that? That's my life? Um So um very easy. Uh you can uh actually the easiest way is through linkedin because I'm very active on linkedin. Um so you can look me up my, you can spell my name. C A U L E N. Um, probably the only person on linkedin that I know of that probably has their name spelled like me. Um so that's one option. If you'd like to email me. My email is Colin C A U L E N at Brain power dot agency. Um, and I think those are the two best ways to get into touch for me. [00:23:42] spk_0: Love it. Okay, well, thank you all for being here. Thank you for listening. Thank you Colin for just dropping so many nuggets today. And we've got a bunch of folks here in our zoom chat. And so we're going to stop the recording and we're going to let our folks that are in our zoom chat ask any questions that they have and now we're going to stop the live as well but we just want to remind you guys first of all, thank you for listening and I hear from so many of you and I just love that you listen to us and that you get value out of what we bring. It's one of my favorite things to do all week is to record this podcast because I get to learn from amazing people like Colin so you know just please rate review subscribe, go to sell a round table dot com and hit that subscribe button so that you get notified of all of our new episodes and we just appreciate you all so much and we will see you next time on the seller roundtable. Goodbye everyone. [00:24:45] spk_1: Thanks for tuning in, join us every Tuesday at one PM pacific standard [00:24:49] spk_0: time for live Q and [00:24:50] spk_1: A and bonus content after the recording at cellar Round table dot com, sponsored by the ultimate software tool for amazon sales and growth seller s c o dot com and amazing at home dot com.