Salena Knight 0:02
So hey there, and welcome to the bringing business to retail podcast. If you're looking to get more sales, more customers, master your marketing and ultimately take control of your retail or E commerce business, then you're in the right place. I'm Selena Knight, a retail growth strategist and multi award winning store owner whose superpower is uncovering exactly what your business requires to move to the next level. I'll provide you with the strategies, the tools and the insight you need to scale your store. All you need to do is take action. Ready to get started.

Salena Knight 0:53
Hey there, and welcome to the bringing business to retail podcast as we head Full Tilt into the mania in retail and E commerce, that is q4 I decided to create a series show Katie coasting industry experts to get their advice on how we can leverage q4 and specifically, Black Friday, Cyber Monday. At the moment, in the current economic climate, I feel like we need to be adapting and changing. So you don't just need my opinion. You need a bunch of opinions, a bunch of information from industry experts. And that has what is what I have put together for you. Today, I have Toby come stay. He is shopify's Senior merchant Success Manager for the APAC region. And if our pre podcast chat is anything to go by, this is going to be one heck of an episode. In fact, I'm gonna go so far as if you've got little people around, we haven't even recorded this yet, but if you have little people around, this might be the time to pop in the headphones, because Toby is very much like me. He is very much say it like it is, get down and dirty with the conversation. No holds barred. Now Shopify is just part of Toby's adventure in the retail and E commerce landscape. Toby also founded and then grew a very, very successful retail and E commerce business before it was acquired in I think it was 2020, you'll correct me if I'm wrong. So not only is his knowledge firsthand, he's been where you are now, and he is delighted to share you his insider secrets. Toby, welcome to the pod.

Speaker 1 2:27
Thank you, Sal. That is such a nice introduction. And I hope the little ones don't hear anything too crazy from us today, but I'll share warning. And yeah, look, I have had a bit of experience in this space, obviously, starting my own company and growing that as well. I think for me, it's always been around the intersection of business, technology and human connection, and really excited to be here today and talk about all of those things around bfcm as well.

Salena Knight 2:55
We'll get to the bfcm start stuff. But the simple fact is, I think on the inside, we are all sticky beaks. I don't know if that's a term that's used everywhere, but it's certainly a term that's used here. We love to be able to pick behind the scenes, you know, get the, you know, the down and the dirty information of what it's like to run a business. So can you give us the 411, give us the reason that Toby started a retail slash ecommerce business. Was it? I think it was ecommerce to begin with. Am I correct? Correct? Yeah,

Speaker 1 3:26
crazily enough, it was ecommerce to begin with, in 2005

Salena Knight 3:31
Can I just say you hands down, win? Because usually it is me saying, Oh, I started my first ecommerce business in 2007 but you, you beat me to the chase, so you have even more time in this industry than I do. Yeah, and

Speaker 1 3:47
look, it was, it was a time when I thought, and I think I recently, listened, recently to one of your coaches, Daniel, give me talk about this too. The early 2000s were bringing with that excitement and opportunity around the E commerce space. It wasn't a lot of tech providers out there or opportunity to really, like, dig in and whizzy wiggy you can go like, you don't know the code. So I taught myself how to code, and I taught myself how to build a really basic functioning website and online store, and grew it from there. But back to your question about why? I mean something you won't see on my LinkedIn is that I grew up working in my family takeaway shop.

Salena Knight 4:26
So this was a food shop, bacon. Mean, hamburger is what your hamburger,

Speaker 1 4:29
kebab, whatever you need from the age of about 12 or 13. So retail is in my blood. And I think the other thing that's in my blood, and this comes from my grandparents, was innovation or entrepreneurship. They opened men with these little convenience stores or fast food stores around the Northern Rivers here in Australia, which is just sort of north of Sydney. And they were always innovating. They were always looking for something better or bigger or to differentiate. And that was in my blood. So from a very early age. Joe was always trying to find something new and exciting as well. And when I got to university as a musician, I was studying to be a classical violinist, it was still there bubbling underneath this whole idea of, well, what's the business I'm in right now, and what do the people need, and what are the biggest problems? And I was one of those customers that couldn't find the perfect violin strings anywhere. And it was this, you know, quest to find the best sound, or maybe it was the quest to find the best violin case that would stand the rigors of trying to get it through the Conservatorium, that kind of thing. And for me, I was also working in, you know, music stores, casually trying to get through uni. And I saw this opportunity, I thought really, online was where I was trying to find these products. I couldn't find them, and I had the knowledge and the willpower to go and learn how to build the online store. So I did, and that's where it all started. And, you know, cut nearly 20 years later, I'd quit my uni degree, I'd gone full time into the business and grown it and hired violin makers and repairers and importing products from all over the world and selling to organizations and schools and customers and building a community. So a really, really exciting time.

Salena Knight 6:10
Okay, I think I feel like you just cut out the really like the most important part, which was one, clearly the business got to a point where you could make money to survive off of and you left the uni degree. I mean, how did the parents feel about that? Like, here you go with Conservatorium classical, you know, going into an orchestra, and now you're like, I'm going to throw it away for this online stuff. It's a huge thing. It's

Speaker 1 6:38
a huge choice, because you study for so many years to get to a mastery level where you're actually accepted into a Conservatorium and and that's not an easy task in itself. But then, of course, you've got all of these years of practice and rehearsing and to get into those orchestras as well. I think something was really clear with my parents about in making this decision, were the opportunities that were really allowed to me after I'd complete this degree were pretty slim here in Australia, and, you know, globally, I would have had to travel a lot as well to make that opportunity stick, or really find something that was highly beneficial. And whilst definitely was, you know, starting a business as very entrepreneurial, so I was obviously very gung ho and willing to do what it took. I could see a different path. And I think for my family, having been in business and in retail themselves, they kind of knew what I was, what I was up against, or what I was coming into, I should say, in the opportunity that they saw for me. So they were actually quite, quite okay with it. I think it took a little bit of Yeah, a little bit of tension, but I think it got there and definitely paid off. So the happy in the end.

Salena Knight 7:45
So can you tell me about the opening of the business? We'll get to the Black Friday stuff. But this, I think, is really important, because I know the stories, I know some of the stories you're going to tell us, and I think it's really important to just understand where you're coming from, so you're looking online. You're in university, so you're young, you're passionate, you're looking online for these products. You can't find them. You can see this niche. You can see this opportunity. And you go, like we all did back in the day, I'm going to create a website and see if people will come. How did you market the website? Like, how did you get the people? Because you and I both know that E commerce back in the early 2000s it was kind of an, if you know, you know, kind of thing, like, unless you were hanging out on a forum, which is where we all hung out before Facebook, and you could give people the links we didn't really have internet marketing. So tell me, how did you find the people?

Speaker 1 8:44
That's a really, really good question. So that, and it really casting my mind back. Now, word of mouth was still huge, and it still is, obviously huge, but word of mouth was really, really critical for the growth of that business. And I say that because I was in the industry. So I think it took an industry insight to understand that there was a shared problem or opportunity here, but there was also a shared what path that people were going to the internet at this time, and they weren't kind of finding exactly what they wanted. So I used that insight, but I also use my network, and I think this is where it was getting everyone to try and go to the website. First of all, the biggest thing it's like, what? Why would I go to the website where I can just go down the road or go to a store, right? And then it was the point of difference. So actually explaining to them, well, actually, no, I've worked with some international companies to bring product to Australia that you can't buy anywhere else. And so it was that level, once they got there, of how to convert them as well. I think the big thing though, is word of mouth industry and making sure you really work your networks. The last thing I did, though, which I still recommend to this day, is use traditional media to market a digital. Product. And I letterbox dropped, I created catalogs. You

Salena Knight 10:04
put some flyers on poles, didn't you exactly

Speaker 1 10:06
you've got to and for me it was, it was make or break. And I think this is the other thing. If you don't have a option B, you're going to try everything in the toolkit to get there. Whereas, yeah, option B can sometimes be, Oh, it didn't work. Let's go and try that next thing. But I didn't have an option B, so it had to work. I

Salena Knight 10:25
know that is such an interesting line of thinking, because I'm with you. I believe that for a lot of people, this is this gonna sound so counterintuitive, but having financial security in the background is actually a detriment to your business, because when you have no option, but you know, I have to make 20 grand this month to be able to pay my people, pay my rent, pay my stock, pay myself, you know, feed myself. All those things. You will do everything you possibly can to make you $20,000 or whatever that number is. But if you know that, you can try to just pull that money out of the bank, and I'm not saying that you shouldn't have a financial buffer or cushion or anything like that, but I'm just saying there are points in your business where having that financial security can be the difference between going all in and kind of just half assing it.

Speaker 1 11:18
Yeah, I'm kind of laughing to myself too, because that first three months, I wanted to have as much time to work on and in the business as I could. But I knew I still needed to make a some income, and I quit my uni degree, so I had time, but I wanted to work the nine to five on the business, so I went and found a job at the airport, which offered me six to midnight shifts, so I could work until midnight to make money from 6pm and then I could get back into the business during the day. And they were hard yakka days, but they were fun. I was quite naive, obviously, and you put a lot of energy into creating the value you need. But I can remember, and hearing you talk, I can remember my first sale and my first customer. And yeah, that's a special moment for me. And I really still It wasn't via the website. My first sale was by the phone. And yeah, you know, I told him at the end of the call, and make sure you go on the website next time and let us know if we can help you. But the pride I had in that sale, and I can the the feeling it brings up today is really special.

Salena Knight 12:23
So I wanted to ask you a question about scaling. So obviously, as you grew, I think it's very clear without you having to say it, I think anyone listening can hear that you probably did put a lot of effort into customer experience. You went that extra mile. So as you grew, and the business grew to the point that somebody else wanted to buy it, which is amazing. Congratulations. What did you find were the hurdles that you hit when it came to scaling? So

Speaker 1 12:48
there's obviously a lot of complexities that arise as you start to grow, and I don't think I could have really I said, you know, I was naive at the start, and I don't think if you knew exactly what was coming up, that you would necessarily go into business in this way, right? Yes, yeah, I agree. So I think some of the biggest complexity is really cash management money. It's all around money, right? I think the biggest complexity is money and making sure that you're super aware of of what's happening day to day in the business in terms of that and with the things that are going to affect that marketing staff, inventory, and then whatever else it takes to sell those goods, retail lease agreements, technology on top all of those nice to haves as as a plus plus on top of the basics. So I think the complexities that I saw, and I still see today when I help mentions here at Shopify, the same problems exist in all businesses. The biggest thing is that those problems will scale with you, so getting right to the at the start or as best you can, and being open to changing and adapting them as you grow is critical, and never leaving anything to the way we did it before is the way we should do it in the future. I think when you scale you need to be ready to revisit process, people, technology, all of the platforms as well, to make sure that they are actually up to the task. And the team that got you to a may not get you to be the technology that got you to be may not get you to see. And I think that's being open and innovative all the time in business, because it can feel like it's an ever changing world of adapting and having to manage the things day to day. And look, I know most businesses that went through covid Just are burnt out and exhausted as well, right? But those challenges, I think, are the critical path. As long as you're ready to grow, you're ready to innovate as well,

Salena Knight 14:48
I think that if we didn't like the challenges, we wouldn't be business owners. There is something about it that we can whinge all we want, but if we didn't like it, we wouldn't be here. And the truth is, you. For those true entrepreneurs, the true people who love business, the thought of going back to a job where someone told you, know, tells you what to do, and you have to report up the ladder, all those kinds of things, it's so far beyond our realm of consciousness, I feel like that is the point when you know that you are in this for the long haul?

Speaker 1 15:21
Yeah, I agree. And so it's, there is good in both measures. So there's there's good and there's bad, right? And yes, we can complain all we like as as business owners, but at the end of the day, you've still got this independence and this journey that you can own and the decisions lie with you, which is scary at times, but really is the most exciting part, I think,

Salena Knight 15:41
yeah, well, you to choose your own adventure. Speaking of which, can you tell me? Like you said, you sort of hinted at your marketing. You know, you went old school, you did flyers, you did the polls, you did word of mouth, all those kinds of things you were in the industry for. I'm gonna go like 15 years, like quite a long time. And obviously the industry has evolved very much so since 2005 like, we didn't really have email marketing back then and we didn't have Facebook based we didn't have Facebook, we didn't have Instagram, we didn't have all the things. Can you tell me the difference between a promotion or a marketing event that you ran just before you sold versus what you would have done a few years into the business. How are they different? Well,

Speaker 1 16:25
interestingly for me, I actually, when I started the business and the brand, I was very specific about the brand over the promotions. And I say that anyway that and not every industry or vertical has this ability, because sometimes the market will really dictate what you and how you should show up, or how you how a brand might show up in music instrument retail, we had not a lot of what movers before me doing any of this, so we really got to to cut our own path and set the standards as well, which there was a lot of traditional retail, don't get me wrong, and there was a lot of traditional retail stores doing promotions and end of financial year, or they do back to school, that kind of thing. But the brand I'd created, we really didn't want to discount, and we didn't want to be known for discounting, and that came off the back of wanting to run a high quality brand persona and being very high quality in how we handled the customer experience and the post purchase experience, and so when it came to promotions, we actually didn't run a lot of sales in the first couple of years. What we did do was a lot of hand holding, a lot of community experiences, and we actually partnered with a lot of industry and retail experts or CO labs, that kind of thing, that brought us closer to the customer and closer to the customer experience through trusted advisors or trusted channels. And I think that made a huge difference to the to the ripple effect, or that marketing effect that we then had in terms of word of mouth, in terms of referrals and so on. So I would say we're very blessed, if you like, at that early stage, as we got more mature, we started to look at running campaigns and how they should be really tailored to the community that we had set up. And so we started to get a voice of community going, which I thought was excellent. So they gave us the feedback, they told us what they were looking for, and we would start to test and learn. And so quickly, we had a VIP level of segment, and we had a lot of things happening that I think we were mature in some ways in that space, because we'd started to segment our audiences. We'd started to talk to people through different channels, and we knew which channels they preferred. And that led us into really, really reluctantly, going into Black Friday eventually, but the first kind of sales we had were back to school, because we knew this was our huge acquisition moment for parents and students starting musical journeys at school. And we knew it was a great opportunity to get people in the door, because I did move into retail eventually and start running retail stores, and it was a great opportunity to have conversations with those people. So those campaigns didn't necessarily look like a discount. They may have been free gift with purchase. They may have been an upgrade to maybe a better sounding instrument or a better set of strings with the instrument, but they weren't necessarily all about discounting. So we led with that quality, and then we we measured up, I suppose, or double down on the value that the brand was creating as well. And then finally, we moved into some discounting strategies. And the way we looked at that was, how are we going to retain the brand persona and retain this brand without being a discount merchant? Because there are already discount merchants in our industry, and we didn't want to be heavily associated with them, so we started to work towards spend and save campaigns, and they were a great bread and butter campaign. And we ran those mostly around the Black Friday time. And we found that what we were really looking to do was take our average order value on our units per transaction as high as possible, and. Without reducing our gross profit. And we knew then we didn't have to get as much revenue in the door as maybe if we'd gone on 20 or 30% discount. But we so we wouldn't really have to push the acquisition spend as much either, and we knew we also had a hugely loyal customer base as well. So all of that combined, we ran it quite lean, but we did it in a way that was really tailored toward the brand and the community. I

Salena Knight 20:25
want to dig into that more, but I just want to, like, reverse back a little bit and highlight if, guys, if you weren't listening, one of the key things that Toby just mentioned was that he identified the key times of the year, which for most of you, is going to be q4 as a key acquisition period. So acquisition period, if that, if that words a little bit strange to you, what it means is we get more customers in so whether that is getting more people onto our email list, getting more people to our website, getting more people into our stores, building up a retargeting audience. What Toby said was so important that it can't be overlooked, is that when you identify these key spending times for your customers, you can use those times to acquire customers. It may sound obvious now that I've said it, but I think too many people don't put that parallel in, which is like it's not just about making money, but people are going to be looking for whatever it is I sell at this period of time. So I need to think about my marketing as a very well rounded not just selling stock, but also, what am I going to do to build my customer database during this time as well, so that even if they decide to spend with my competitor, I still can get hold of them again in the future in some way, shape or form. I

Speaker 1 21:50
think the other part of that is, if they're coming into your store, right, they're browsing and leaving, how can you at least have a conversation with them to get them to sign up to your mailing list, or if they're interested in something, send them a quote or an order for them to consider at home, given that they've spent time today to come in and talk to you. I think that's that's where, if you've got retail stores, really making sure that the customer engagement at any time, but specifically around those high traffic periods, is all around the top of funneling, which is getting those new customers and getting them on a list. Somehow, you just

Salena Knight 22:26
said one of my secrets, which is giving people quotes, like, nobody tells you to do that. It is one of my little like, you know, the thing that the thing that makes you money is, we used to sell, you know, 567, $100,000 packs of reusable nappies. And I just used to think, some people will think, if I give them a quote, they'll use that to get a better deal somewhere else. But the reality is, nearly every person we gave to a quote to came back and bought it, or they rang up and bought it, or they went online and bought it, because you had taken the time to explain something to them and to walk them through. And your good customers, respect that your good customers like, you know what? Maybe I can get it $10 cheaper, but I kind of know if I've got a problem, I can go back to then and they're going to help me out. Yeah,

Speaker 1 23:08
and I think, too, the great retailers follow up. They use that quote as an opportunity to get back on the phone, get on an email, and genuinely remember something unique about the customer experience. For us, it was quite easy. We had, well, I wouldn't say easy, but it was really most people were coming in to buy a new violin or a new bow or something, because either they were much better all of a sudden, they had this need for a nicer sound, or they had this need because they were going to play for an exam or a concert. And so it was a big thing for me to remember those moments that mattered to the customer. And when you send that quote, or you follow up on that quote, I hope the exam went well. I hope everything you know went off without a hitch, or you got a great result. And it's those little things that I think, too, show that you're a retailer with authentic value, and you can create trust really quickly too. Just

Salena Knight 24:00
remind me, Can we do that easily in Shopify? Pos, yes, exactly. You

Speaker 1 24:04
can. You can capture customer notes and all sorts of things that you can either show to the customer or just to your staff in the back end as well. So that's a great way to capture those little details about a customer that should be really memorable. But obviously, when you're serving hundreds 1000s, who knows you want to be able to quickly remember an insight or a little story potentially as well. Yeah,

Salena Knight 24:26
I love that. I love that the POS updates so often that, like, you know, I can't keep track of everything. So thank you for giving me that. I want to know your experience, because you work with you're the senior Success Manager, so you're working with hundreds, if not 1000s of brands all around the world, and you're getting that kind of behind the scenes. This is what we like. You get to give us the dirty on what's happening. What are other people doing leading into Black Friday, Cyber Monday? So can you tell us right now, we're in October. What do you see? Seeing happen behind the scenes for brands.

Speaker 1 25:03
So I do, I work with a lot of our top or largest brands here in APAC on the platform, and that can be across Unified Commerce, DTC, retail, etc, or it could be just d to c purely, or retail purely as well. So Shopify, POS, what I'm seeing, generally speaking, is that really these brands have a clear strategy. They have a clear strategy going in, and it may also be a year in advance that they've put this strategy together, but most would have this strategy really, really solid by now, if not last month. They would also be really clear on the metrics that are the most important for them at this time of year to drive. And I know we spoke about new customers acquired, we have to look at the metrics for each individual business and make sure that they are actually important at the moment to drive. Why I say that is, revenue can sometimes be a very big vanity metric, and we sometimes look at this and say, Well, I want to double my revenue, or 10x my revenue, or put a really high goal in place around revenue. Particularly, I see this just for these, these peak seasons or holiday seasons. And may be good, but it may not be the best thing for the business as well at this time. And I say that because I don't know your gross profit margins. I don't know what your inventory stock situation's looking like. I don't know your current levels of inventory, but those metrics that are really key to you need to be key in this peak season as well. And so I see the strategy being really strong. We've got a pre during and then a post strategy around peak season, and then really having a metric or an ROI that's critical for your business, that's well understood in the business as well. So it's not just that you as the business owner understand that that's what we're driving this year, but it's everyone involved in the campaigns and also in the execution and so on that understands what they're driving and why?

Salena Knight 27:00
So can we just dig into the pre during and post just a little bit pre Black Friday, which is now, what are you seeing? Are people just using this as a runway to get their brand awareness up, like, to fill that type of funnel? Are they using it for their email list? Like, what are you seeing? And is it different to the previous years?

Speaker 1 27:19
It is slightly different. This year, what I'm Jenny seeing is, is the same, pretty much year on year, in terms of grow your list. Really grow your customer list. Get it in front of as many customers you can now, because as we come into the November bfcm, peak time, those acquisition costs are not only high, highly expensive, but the cut through is really hard too. And I would say it's like wading through a really swampy waters of the unknown there. You don't know who's going to see your ads, necessarily. With everyone running an ad, right? Do it now and do something now that's really around that, getting their email, getting their mobile number, maybe getting a sale, but generally speaking, if you can get them on a list somehow, that's going to be great sales. Even better, as you start that pre strategy, then it's around. Well, how are you going to nurture those new customers from now until Black Friday? And is it just sort of keeping them up to date of what the brand's doing, the brand's story, or is it more product features and focus and benefits on that kind of space? And you want to know as a brand what works here best, but generally speaking, if you're not looking to convert them to a sale right now, it's kind of that nurtured journey, and you don't want to go too hard all of a sudden. The other thing I'd be looking at in that pre strategy is really focusing in on what are the goals for Black Friday, set those up so that you can measure them post but also during, and be really clear about the why behind them. So a lot of the time we see brands put that revenue metric, as I spoke about on but the bigger one might be, how much do you want to grow that list by? And looking at the conversion rate of your list today, if you could count on that conversion rate during bscm, but even better, after BSM, when you're not on sale and you're going to sell at full price, that conversion rate, would that mean more customers we can look at, then also how much more revenue you're going to be driving off the back of that too. So it's an investment now that pays off longer term than just an initial sale, I think, as well.

Salena Knight 29:26
Yeah, okay, so a couple of things. I'm writing notes furiously so I don't try and forget to ask you these questions and have these conversations. So the first one, I think, leads me to the second one, which was originally the first one. So my first question or first conversation starter, here is what you essentially are saying is reverse engineering. So if you want to make we'll just go with revenue, because it makes it easy. If you want to make X amount of revenue, and you know your average order value during Black Friday Cyber Monday is y, then you can quite easily say we need z number of sales. Sales, and then you can go back, and you can go, All right, so based on our data last year, our customer acquisition cost during Black Friday Cyber Monday is p. So to get this, I now have to go p times z. So customer acquisition cost times the number of sales that we're going to make, and that's going to give you your marketing budget, at which point most people freak out and go, I don't have that much money. Now, if we backtrack, because you just said something really important, you talked about building our list now, and you and I both know that list building is much cheaper than a conversion, so to get somebody's email or SMS, we put an offer out there. It might be discount code, it might be access to something, but that's going to be in the dollars versus, generally, you know, a couple of dollars versus customer acquisition cost in Black Friday Cyber Monday, can be hundreds of dollars. And so if you look at, if you do the reverse engineering, and you look at that budget and go, we can't afford that, the simple fact is, you're not going to hit that number. So the metric that you've pulled out of your butt is just the stats are, you can't hit that. But what you're saying is, if we backtrack to now and we start building our email list, the cost to retarget our existing customers way cheaper. That's like, again, we're back in the cents and dollars, not in the 10s or hundreds opening up our emails. Like, you know what conversion you can put KPIs on these things? And so now you're like, Well, we know we have to send X amount of emails based on this conversion rate to hit our goals. Again, you've kind of given us, I think, a really big nugget there that we just needed to break down, in case people thought it was great, but they didn't really distill the information, yeah, and a

Speaker 1 31:42
lot of these tactics we can see other retailers doing, but we may not entirely know why it's all about that reducing the cost of acquisition around this time, because we know it just escalates incredibly around November and even into December as well. So yes, get those hungry customers now, and, you know, convert them whenever, I suppose, is the opportunity there. I think the other part of that is, if you've already got a really loyal customer database as well, look at how you're going to create a Black Friday campaign strategy that rewards not only new customers, because obviously great to drive new acquisitions, but if you're looking to really great get lifetime value from your current customers, what is it that's going to get them to come back and buy around this period? If they've bought only once from you and it's on discount already, so maybe you acquired them last year and they haven't come back until Black Friday this year. Make sure that you're very clear about that list and segmenting them into your discount shoppers, because to target them from any other reason may actually result in a bit of a dud metric, really. So looking at that, looking at Harry, and then, of course, if you've got very loyal customers, and they're coming back a lot, what are the things that you could put in place that give the show them that they are your VIPs, that they're important to you, that they're valuable to their brand, and offering them something like early access to the sale, or it might be a special gift with purchase, that little bit extra that that keeps those customers with you for a very long time.

Salena Knight 33:17
You are so on the money. Thank you very much for reminding us. I think we forget when we're on a customer acquisition Bender, we forget that if customers are seeing your sign up to our newsletter and get 20% off, but I've already spent $5,000 with you this year. It's like a punch in the face. It's like, Whoa, you're giving them. It's like, insurance. I have to get new home insurance. And I rang up my insurance company and I was like, Okay, I've been with you for six years. What are you going to get? Going to give me? Because that company, you're offering new people 10% off, and they're like, no, sorry. To

Speaker 1 33:46
that point, they're almost saying to you, go elsewhere, right? Go elsewhere, and then come back to us. And you don't want your customers to do that. You certainly don't want to pay another acquisition cost for the same customer, because they've churned from you as well. So yes, keep them healthy, keep them coming back, and really finding ways to reward them as well. Most of all, talk to them. Talk to them about what, what that could look like.

Salena Knight 34:10
I love that. Can you give us some ideas? Because I know that your brand wasn't big on discounting. So you did some you did some promos where you did some spend and saves. You worked out acquisition cost, you worked out gross profit margin. You did all the great things with your entrepreneurial spirit. You were taught very, very well. But can you give us some ideas on if we're not just out for revenue, what are some things we can do? What are some campaigns? What are some promotions? What are some offers we can put out there to our customers, because we can't compete with the big guys, but we want to do something. Because I think what I'm hearing you say, please correct me if I'm wrong is you need to be in Black Friday, Cyber Monday, regardless, what you don't necessarily have to do is have a big discount. So

Speaker 1 34:52
I really like this. And this is something I worked on with our with my brand, but I work on now with with merch. Across the Shopify platform. I call it kind of the anti pattern, to be a cm, because we do want to be part of Black Friday. Yes, and Shopify merchants made $9.3 billion last year in Black Friday just in that period. So there's, there's a good reason to do so, and we know that the intent is there. We also know from the recent retail reports that customers are expecting value more than ever at the moment, and I don't know wherever you are in the world, there is generally a bit of a cost of living crisis going on. So I think that's top of mind as well. So I would definitely double down on sale and say, Yes, we should be having something to do with Black Friday, but if it's not going to be around competing with the big guys and having those big sales or big discounts going on, then look at what you can do to differentiate or what I call that anti pattern. Some really good examples of that are Patagonia. For instance, when it's Black Friday for them, they they either do something really wacky and say, don't buy this jacket, which was a big campaign of theirs a couple of years ago. Or they ensure that everywhere you're shopping, it says 100% profits for the planet. And so they align the exact reason that they're on sale with the exact reason that you should buy, which is because it's, we have, you know, a big charitable organization under Patagonia, that's that's really helping the planet. So one the example, the other is Rei, which is a great outdoor and camping store in America. They often go on sale, but they with Black Friday. They don't they give everyone a day off, and they have a campaign that says, opt outside, and they ask their customers to go outside, enjoy being outside camping. And really the reason that they're in business is to allow you that opportunity, and so it's focusing on that, and all credit to them, because what these brands are doing, they're not competing for your dollar, but they're getting your buy in, because you will remember them for time to come, and you remember them for the values that they stand for, which I think really reflects on 100 Year company vision, not just a results focused company. I

Salena Knight 37:03
love that. And the go outside thing is really too often. I think we get so caught up in either trying to give back or trying to make money, and it gets really hard to find that happy middle of, how can I do this thing? How can I be part of it. How can I be top of my customer's mind? You know what? I can't afford to do a massive discount. So I think there are great examples we've seen, you know, similar things where people will shut down the website for the day and then say, you know, we'll do it on Tuesday. So Cyber Monday, they'll be like, you can't buy anything today, yeah, but tomorrow, and all that does is make you be like, Oh, but oh, what's going to be happening tomorrow? Like you're just like, oh yes, yeah, I need to know. And so, like you said, anything that disrupts the pattern is enough for us to be to keep our interest piqued. And during I mean, I would love to say it's only four days, but the simple fact is, now Black Friday seems to start,

Speaker 1 38:04
yeah, well, and I think this year it's, it's a little challenging too. We have the US election coming up around the same time, so there's going to be, I think, a few brands going on sale a little earlier than just Black Friday, as as typically they do. But yeah, the November season really is the Black Friday season. It doesn't matter. I think, yeah, it could start on the first it could start anywhere in between. I think the other thought I had in just that, is making sure that whatever you do if you are going to shut down your website, making sure you align it to one of the brand values that you have as to the why, but really giving. But don't just shut down the website. Have the sign up form on there and make sure that's live, you know, because I do sometimes see the website shut down, we're not on sale until tomorrow. But why can't I sign up to be notified? It's little things like that, just getting all of those ducks in a row and making sure that you are still in that acquisition mode if you're going to go with one

Salena Knight 38:59
of those opportunities. I think that that is so pertinent, because I too, have seen that. I'm like, great, but tomorrow I might forget. Like, yeah, yeah. Definitely go to forget in the way. Can you just, just let me know tomorrow? Oh, Toby, you have gave, given us so many I want to see. Let's try and do a quick recap, although I don't know if my notes will go through everything. So first of all, we talked about, well, I'm not going to say first of all some of the things we talked about, really aligning how you acquire your customers with your brand value. One is definitely having that pre, during and post strategy for not just black Friday, but whatever is your big, big periods like, for some people, that might be the winter season. For some it might be the summer season, whatever season that is, make sure you've got a plan in place and start early aligning the brand values with the kinds of offers that you're going to be giving out, and knowing that you don't actually have to compete with the big guys. You don't have to do 50% off store wide or 30% off store wide, understanding what your ROI looks like. Because. Your ROI could be very, very different than somebody else's. You don't know what's happening behind the scenes of another person's business. They may have so much stock that they need to liquidate it below cost to be able to pay the bills to make the space in the warehouse, whereas you are like, You know what? I can afford to go and just get some customers, I guess. Don't build your campaigns off your competitors, because you don't know what's happening behind the scenes. Understanding the numbers is really important, like you mentioned that right back from the beginning when you were working in the takeaway store, like understanding things like profit margin. And just think, if you, if you put your head in the sand when it comes to that, it's quite easy to find you make the sales. And then you look up and you're like, but why is there any money in the bank, yeah,

Speaker 1 40:40
yeah. And why do I still have all of this debt or this, the, you know, the stock I've paid for, but I still don't have profits in the bank? It's those that it's, yeah, they're not little. It's a big it's a big thing. Know, your unit economics, right? Yeah,

Salena Knight 40:54
segmenting our email list, creating different offers for those different people. We covered so much, I'm up to 10 already of you, two hands I'm out now. There were more than 10 takeaways from today's episode. Thank you, Toby. I

Speaker 1 41:07
hope there was some good I hope there's some gold in there. There was, yeah, we definitely touched on a lot of a lot of things. But I think these are just the bread and butter of being in business too. This is what goes through every business owner's mind, and they're constantly checking in on a lot of these things.

Salena Knight 41:22
I can't let you go before asking you, what is your favorite Shopify app? So

Speaker 1 41:27
I would actually say favorite part of Shopify, before I go into the app, is the POS I was an early adopter on the point of sale before it was integrated with payment terminals, even here in Australia. But love Shopify point of sale. I think it's, we've got incredible amount of engineers really developing the solution now. And it's, it's, as you said before, the the changes and the updates are coming thick and fast. My favorite app at the moment that I'm seeing is called order editing. And I love this app not only reducing the incredible amount of post purchase tickets that come through to support desks, but giving them the opportunity to continue to upsell to the customer if they've forgotten to add something to their cart, if they wanted to take express shipping and they didn't, giving them this window of opportunity, whether it's 2030, minutes or even three hours before you're going to ship the order, I think is a secret source, and can't wait to see what those guys do.

Salena Knight 42:22
I love that. You said that because that is one of the strategies. One of my secret strategies that I used to get somebody from very low six figures to a million dollars run rate in just a couple of months was that app was the difference between making six figures a year and making six figures a month. And that sounds that's a story for another time, but I love that no one ever talks about these things. That's one of my favorite things. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 42:49
Go and check it out. It's great. Love it

Salena Knight 42:51
all right. Toby, thank you so much for all of the golden nuggets that you've given us for that favorite app that you didn't even stop right at the end, right to the end, you were dropping great, big knowledge bombs on us with that app. So thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your story, your knowledge, all the information, and I'm sure that people listening can walk away with at least one thing that they can implement today. Thank you

Speaker 1 43:14
so much, Sal and good luck with Black Friday for everyone partaking. I hope it's a excellent time

Salena Knight 43:22
so that's a wrap. I'd love to hear what insight you've gotten from this episode and how you're going to put it into action. If you're a social kind of person, follow me at the Selena Knight and make sure to leave a comment and let me know. And if this episode made you think a little bit differently, or gave you some inspiration, or perhaps gave you the kick that you needed to take action, then please take a couple of minutes to leave me a review on your platform of choice, because the more reviews the show gets, the more independent retail and E commerce stores just like yours, that we can help to scale, and when that happens, it's a win for you, a win for your community and a win for your customers. I'll see you on the next episode.