Detailed Notes
You’ve got traffic… but not enough demos, leads, or signups. In Part 2, Samir ElKamouny breaks down conversion rate optimization as an execution discipline: diagnose the bottleneck, prioritize the 80/20, and test what people actually engage with.
In Part 2, we cover: • Traffic problem vs conversion problem (diagnose the constraint first) • The 80/20 approach to funnel fixes • The “two-second clarity test” for positioning • How to run smarter A/B tests (don’t test what nobody sees)
About Samir ElKamouny Samir ElKamouny is an entrepreneur, marketing expert, and visionary leader with a passion for transforming lives and businesses through strategic execution. His mission is to leave every person and business better than he found them.
Read the blog recap: https://develpreneur.com/conversion-rate-optimization-samir-elk
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Transcript Text
[music] [music] [music] [music] Well, hello and welcome back. We are continuing the season of building better foundations. We are building better developers the developer podcast. We are in part two of a conversation with Samir and we are going to Yes, I dropped his last name because I was like it's very pronouncable but I'm going to stumble over it. So, we're just going to go with Samir and I think he'll he'll be okay with that. If not, I apologize. Uh, but first should probably introduce myself. My name is Rob Broadhead, one of the founders of developer, also the founder of RB Consulting, where we help you assess technology and build a roadmap for success. rb-sns.com. Good news or good thing, bad thing. Uh, good thing is I'm I'm planning on a rather largest vacation. And the good thing is is that what AI does for you these days as far as a um a travel agent. It is amazing how much detail and information I was able to get in like a sitting. And I'm talking like a sitting of like I don't know 30 to 60 minutes, something like that. It was like it wasn't that long and it was spitting out really awesome stuff. Um, but this goes back to some of the conversations we've had that you've got to be able to understand how to do prompts and how to talk to AI and things like that. Uh, along those lines, if you check out the rbsns.com site, there's going to be some links. We're playing around with a lot of little apps that are they're like appletits, ways for us to do uh AI and prompts and things like that better. And I think they're just great things. They're free. There's no there's no cost. There's no something like that. the ones that you have to register for. It's really just so that we can keep your data your data. Uh so that you can, you know, the stuff you put in there isn't getting mingled with everybody else's. Uh we're not tracking anything else. So this is really just to try to help everybody do AI better because we really try to avoid like the Terminator situation where suddenly AI has taken over. We want to make sure that we all understand it good enough. And that would be the downside is if you are embracing AI like I do and you're using it a lot a lot of different ways. is if you're starting to say like, "Hey, there's some great stuff." Then probably like me, you're also finding situations where it just is driving you insane because you get into a loop or something like that. And while yes, I've been able to get some really cool stuff out of it. Yes, I've also had more than a couple times where I've wasted my time basically trying to get it to do something that I should have spent the five minutes and done it myself. So, choose your poison. I guess my poison I chose is my guest host, my co-host over here. And Michael is going to try not to poison you while he introduces himself. >> Hey everyone, my name is Michael Mosh. I'm one of the founders of developer building better developers. I'm also the founder of Vinvision QA. If your software is holding you back, it's time for a change. You know, Envision QA builds and tests reliable custom solutions. Let's fix what's not working. Check us out in envision qa.com. Uh good thing, bad things. Uh guess good things, we're getting into the holiday season. I'm going to have uh or I guess when this comes out, we'll be just out of the holiday season. Uh but we're recording this before the holidays, so I'm going to actually hopefully have a little bit of downtime, get caught up on some games I got at my birthday a couple months ago, and start getting into the bad side of things, which is preparing and planning out uh where the business is going to be going into next year. more working on the business than in the business, but doing with some of the things that, you know, [snorts] I really don't like playing around with too much like marketing and stuff. I'd rather be writing code. >> Uh well, hopefully uh as we're talking into marketing, uh it's not so much branding, but definitely marketing. Uh hopefully it's something that you guys can uh learn a little bit and hopefully it's something that doesn't bother you too much. Uh but we're going to dive right back into our conversation with Samir El Camune. And the yeah, spelling it is going to be a little bit of a challenge, but that's all right. We'll have links so you can uh connect with him. And here we go. Pencil's up. Time to take notes. >> Very good. Uh so I have a question for you. So with all your years of experience and the different kind of hustles and um companies and products you've been doing, can you give me an example of one that went very badly? You know, that didn't work or kind of didn't exceed your expectations as to what you were trying to do and then uh like how did you handle that and how did you learn from that for your next hustle? >> Good question. Who do I want to throw under the bus? >> Um you know what I I think this is an interesting one. So we had this client for actually quite a while called Mealenders. And what it is is it's a lozener, kind of like a cough drop that you put in your mouth and it is uh very like minty or gives you kind of like this menthol type sensation and then it finishes really sweet. So you kind of cure like a sweet whatever or or or vice versa. One or the other. Sorry, I can't remember. It's been a while. And so what this product is intended to do is sort of curb those like midnight cravings, right? Oh, I'm going to go for the potato chips or oh, I'm going to go for the candy, whatever it is, right? And so that's what this product is intended to do. Really cool product, great marketing, real problem, right? All of the things that we were just talking about sort of check off the boxes. They went on Shark Tank, they didn't get a deal, but they got tons of traffic, obviously, sales through the roof. Okay? And you know, you could call it a overnight success if you wanted to. Now, where is Malters today? I don't know. I actually haven't looked in there if their website exists anymore. But the problem was that they pretty much Yep. So, it looks like they're gone. So, pretty much what happened is they never listened to their customer and they never listened to the market. So, great idea. Couple of the products were okay, but most people weren't crazy about the flavors. They were asking for more flavors. Most people were kind of complaining about a couple small components. Like, not difficult things to solve and come out with a version two or some new flavors or a limited run to test whatever it is. They had plenty of opportunity to to test it. And because they never made any changes and they just sort of, oh, we're on Shark Tank and we get all this traffic every time we air on Shark Tank. It doesn't work like that. The first time you air, you get tons of traffic. Then every single time you air, you get less and less and less and less, right? I remember we would check Google Analytics while it would air and sometimes we get like five people on the website. Wow. Cuz it's like the 50th time it's aired at this point, right? And so the point I'm making is it's really important to listen to your customer, try to gain feedback from your customer, and pay attention to reviews. And so now this is something that I religiously do across the board pretty much for anything. Whether it's a client that's coming on board, whether I'm investing in a business, whether I'm trying to purchase a product, like we all do this, right? We all Google like, "Oh, this this product looks really great. It's $1,000. Oh, what are the reviews?" And then if I find problems, okay, what are they doing to to try to hedge this? And so often enough, I think they just don't really do anything. They're like, "Ah, the customer's wrong." and and blah blah blah. But a fast other example is we had a a client that sells uh beauty products for for older women and one of their products came and it like something wasn't working right like it the lipstick wasn't wasn't you know coming out correctly or something was wrong and so they started getting a couple bad reviews. Immediately identified what it was. Immediately improved the packaging of that product. reached out to every single customer that ever bought that product recently, even if they didn't leave a review, even if they didn't have any issues, said, "Hey, we found that there was an issue. We want to replace the product for free. We're going to send you this new product." And guess what happened? A bunch of incredible reviews, people raving about their product and service, right? And now you got a bunch of of testimonials and everything else coming your way. And so, you know, that I'm not saying the customer is always right, but I think when you do take the Amazon approach and put the customer first, uh, really interesting things happen. And, uh, you know, and you got to be willing to iterate on your business or service or I don't care what it is, like software gets old, like everything gets old, right? You got to update it. You got to make it more beautiful. You got to update the packaging, whatever it is to stand out in the market. And so often I just see it's like, well, we're doing good, so why change anything? >> So, I love those two examples. That that's perfect. It's like innovate or die, but you have to listen to your customers and, you know, if you're not getting good reviews or there's something wrong, you got to fix it. And, you know, then make sure you know, make sure that the customer understands that, you know, they are being valued as a customer, that their feedback is important. Uh, those are two critical things. So, of course, we live in a new age of AI. Uh, what are some of the changes you've had to make or that you see coming within your industry where you're having to either use AI or you found ways to improve on finding those analytics that the performance, get that customer feedback quicker than having to like dig through all the different data models. H I I think there's probably two key areas. Uh one, I obsess over split testing everything. I'm like my brain just works like that now for better or for worse. So, I think all of this enables us to split test just so much faster across everything where before, okay, maybe I had to hire a really expensive copywriter to come up with some new split tests on copy or I had to hire a big creative team in order to come up with 20 new hooks and new video variations for each one of those hooks or whatever it is. So, I think it, you know, on one hand, it allows us to just test so much faster, which I just I love. If you're not testing things, like start testing things. Uh, right, you could be making a lot more money. Uh but on the other hand I you know I I think it also is sort of like this amazing great equalizer which is so cool where you know five years ago 10 years ago or more if you started your business you know you were more a pigeon holder. You didn't have as many you know tools or resources or opportunities at at hand. You know to create an incredible video would have cost you $150,000. Now you can pretty much do it, you know, with no w with with practically no experience almost, right? And and it's only getting faster and and and exponentially growing. And so I just feel like it creates immense opportunity, but the other thing is it can also create sort of shiny object syndrome sometimes and we have to be a little careful of that. And so I think that's where I'd probably encourage everyone to just make sure they are being really calculated about about what they're going about testing and and and doing things. Like I'm all for testing as many AI tools as possible, but I'm very clear in my methodology of doing so of like, okay, which AI tools benefit what I'm doing on a daily basis the most? And then, okay, I can also on the weekend test these little cool random things that aren't going to benefit my life, but I just want to test it out and see how it works and what it does, right? And so, you know, and at the end of the day, I think if you're not educating yourself on it, you're going to get left. You're already being left at the station. And so no matter what, you just got to be spending some time learning this stuff and and obsessing over it and figuring out where it fits into, you know, either your role, you know, your your department, your company, whatever it is, and just making sure that that you are, you know, being uh yeah, ju just pushing things forward because I think that's at at the end of the day all all of us are really looking for. So, do you have a um since you obsess over it, do you have a uh a methodology or sort of a standard approach you take in your evolution of of split testing as far as like cuz like you said you can that's I think sometimes the problem is that there's so many things that you can tweak here and adjust there. Is there uh if there is is there sort of a method to your madness that you you can take as sort of a a rule of thumb? >> Yeah, I love data. I think we're all data guys here, right? At the end of the day, data is everything to me. So, I always try to look at the data. Um, you know, and and find where where those bottlenecks are. And so, I think of, you know, I probably two very specific examples so that people can have like action steps here would be, you know, one just map out every step of your customer journey. Just map it out on a piece of paper, whatever it is, right? So, it's like, okay, first first point, maybe maybe a friend referred them. That's one referral. And maybe there was an ad, maybe there was a cold email, maybe there was a phone call, maybe there's a LinkedIn message, whatever that front-end thing is. Okay, then they came to this landing page. Okay, what do I want? What action do I want them to take here? And what percentage of people are doing it, right? So, okay, I want them to go to this web page. I want them to stay for more than a minute. I want them to go to the next page. Okay, great. 5% of people do that. Okay, great. Mark that down. Then, you know, how many people are booking a demo or doing that next step? And just understand what the what the percentages are in between each one. And then where is the lowest percentage? That's the place to start, right? And and then what I would do, a very easy solution is putting heat mapping, you know, on your site. Everybody's got a website at this point or a software solution of some kind and and and you can put Microsoft Clarity on. It's free. Uh there's other tools like Hot Jar, you know, Hot Jar and Crazy Egg and there's other tools out there, but you know, I always just tell people Microsoft Clarity because it's free and it's pretty darn good in comparison to the other tools out there. and and then just let that put on the you know put that on the website and let it sit there for a little while, few days, a few weeks depending how much traffic you have and then go look at the screen recordings and look at the heat maps. You will re you'll start to understand what's going on really quickly because you can sort of creepily see what people are doing on the recordings on your site. Where are they scrolling past? Where are they stopping? What are they reading? Where are they clicking? And the heat maps will really showcase where they're clicking and where they're not going. So that teeny little section at the bottom of the website that you've been split testing like a hundred times and you're like nothing's happening, but no one scrolls that far down. [laughter] Okay, split testing that probably doesn't make any difference whatsoever. But that second section that all of a sudden everyone's been looking at because it's below the video. It has the call to action button and everyone is clicking on that and it's the high, you know, the the the biggest concentration of clicks. Okay, maybe we split test a different call to action or a different title above it or something and see if that has any kind of positive, you know, impact and and again use data to do it. There's like AB split testing tools and different things that you could do so you could see statistically if that is a, you know, winning sort of observation or or not. Uh those are usually some of the easiest things to do. You could certainly get a lot more advanced with it, uh, you know, with with with user testing and and lots of other really, you know, intricate things, but that's definitely like, you know, you probably hire an agency to do that because they could probably do it more efficiently and faster and reporting better and all those kinds of things. And I think that's just the size you're at, right? [snorts] If you're a really big company and you're doing seven, eight figures, probably reach out to really good agencies, do your due diligence, ask lots of questions, try to make sure that they'll kind of educate you along the way instead of like, oh, trust us, every, you know, we kind of we take care of it. We're the experts. You don't worry about it. Uh, but if you're just starting out or you're a soloreneur or, you know, you're doing six figures or less, like, okay, then you you got to run some of this yourself and and test it out yourself. And and I think that that's where it's really easy to get overwhelmed uh by, you know, how many things there always are to do. And I totally understand and I and I sympathize. We've all been there. Uh but just, you know, starting out with a couple small things to say, okay, hey, you know, what would have the biggest impact on my business and just start on that? Hey, I need more demos. Okay, why am I not getting more demos? I get a lot of traffic, but they're not booking a demo. Okay, then that's the problem that I need to solve. or I don't have a lot of traffic. Okay, that's probably why no one's booking demos. Okay, what do I do to get more traffic? Right? And so just trying to find what the biggest problem is sort of and then kind of applying sort of, you know, the praos principle like 8020 rule, right? So I I love the whole AB testing. I'm a test test driven developer by nature. I I love that. Um, [clears throat] one of the things that I do find interesting and challenging for a lot of people when trying to to kind of build these funnels, build these testing is how do you know when your message is too big, like too broad or you're too niche? It it's like how do you distinguish or how do you identify when you're kind of on one end of the spectrum or too far on the other end of the spectrum? How do you kind of narrow that back down to that sweet spot? Yeah, that's a really good question. Uh, I'm obsessing over exactly that right now with um with the company Capital Logix that I'm consulting for because it's like a very indepth tra sophisticated trading platform that's sort of like any high net worth individual could could utilize and they don't need to be a technical trader. But then it can also be sort of like a fund in a box for people who like are very technical traders. Okay. And I bring this up because I think it's a prime example of making sure sort of a couple different things. So one, you really want to make sure So yeah, I I don't like super broad. I hate super broad. I don't want super broad. I want to land on your website and in two seconds I want to know what you do. I can't stand when I when it's like that really oh we innovate technology and produce solutions to advance humanity. What? Right. Like okay. No. Right. If I got to go spend another five minutes on your website to figure out what you do, there's a massive problem. Now, so I like to be as specific as possible. Now, if I start talking about how I hedge strategy, you know, hedge risk with advanced strategies for alpha generation and now you're like, what? Right? Like, what's alpha gener? What are you talking about? Okay, now that sentence makes perfect sense to a trader. And if all I'm trying to do is is get in front of traders, then it's going to be good. It's going to be a good message and that's going to be a great way to to go about it. But if I can also get in front of other people who aren't traders, uh, and then that gets a little too technical, then maybe I can like bubble it up a little bit more, just like one layer up to just be a little bit not broad, but maybe a little bit more generic so it's not just like industry specific. I see this on LinkedIn all the time. people messaging me and they're like, "Oh, do you you know," and they're just sending me all these analogies and I'm I I literally have no idea what you're saying to me. You're clearly going I'm I'm either not in your industry or you got to come up with some better messages, right? And so, you know, and that is where you can make like really big impacts actually in a lot of your messaging and and and how you're going about talking about your business because you're you're being, you know, as you want to be as specific to your end customer as humanly possible. And so the more information you know about them, demographics, where they live, their pains are, what their fears are, whatever it is, the more specific you can get the messaging, you know, the better it's going to resonate with them. And so, you know, I I try to avoid being broad at all costs. And, you know, and and sometimes like I think brands try to shy away from humor and cheekiness and other things too because they want to be professional and and I think sometimes actually just putting a little humor in there and and adding a little bit of, you know, human touch. I think sometimes also makes a massive impact too. Uh, you know, like one of my favorite marketing agencies as an example, like literally I think all the call to actions on their website are click the damn button, [laughter] you know. It's great. It's great. [sighs] Well, I want to thank you so much for your time as we're starting to sort of hit the uh the limit here. Um, but you've given us a lot of information. So, for all of those that are out there that may be saying, "You know what? I think I would like to spend more time and see where you could help uh you know, maybe you could help me out a little bit." Uh, what would be some great ways for them to get a the best ways for them to get a hold of you? >> Well, I'm the only community in the world, so it's pretty easy to find me. Um, you know, LinkedIn is usually probably the best place professionally, pretty active there and and whatnot. So, yeah, please shoot me a message. Got nothing to sell anybody. Just want everybody to succeed at the end of the day. Uh, and I want us all to win and and everybody to make more money. And uh, if I can give you one teeny tiny little thing to help you do that, amazing. Yeah, if you want to send me your website, I can give you a little feedback on it really fast, just what I see in two seconds, you know, if if I understand what you do or not. And if I'm not your target fit, then that's okay. Like we just talked about, right? But, uh, I can still kind of understand if it fits the needs or not. And, uh, yeah, I appreciate the time, guys. This has been fun. >> All right. Well, thanks so much. Um, we will, uh, we'll wrap this one up and let you get back to your busy day. Uh, again, appreciate your time and and hanging out with us and, uh, we'll talk to you again soon. >> Thanks, Michael. Thanks, Rob. >> All right. Okay. And, um, yeah, we do this, uh, we do have like a, you know, video recording outside of this. We sometimes have bonus material and and stuff like that. Um, we'll send send you links once we get this done. Feel free to share. >> Yeah, all good. Yeah, if you do anything on LinkedIn or Insta, just tag me because I got pretty good followings in both and I can repost and whatnot. Um, any feedback you have for me? >> Um, not really. There was like it was really good especially because I know it sort of puts you u that's the problem with having like you know having people that like sign you up and do these things is sometimes and even I know as being a a guest on podcast sometimes you're like okay I'm going to jump on this and then it's your second or third this week you're like okay what am I talking about? what is the, you know, what is the market and and target audience and u you did a great job just you know diving in and that's the best thing is you know we've got somebody like yourself that knows your you know knows your your domain and you know can definitely talk freely about it and that's where we get that's where we always get some of the best conversations and and the best information. So, uh, as a I guess as a parting thought for those that are like as our sort of the bonus materials, what would be, um, now you mentioned, you know, sort of, uh, Reddit and and digging into social sites, but if somebody was starting out and they just they've got a shoestring budget. Uh, what would you recommend for their best way to get started, try to get some advertising and try to to get out there and and get themselves heard? Um, do you have an example where you think like of a of you know an [snorts] industry or something like that? Because I think that's where things it's very it's >> Oh, that's probably Well, let's go with the SAS because you you you sort of picked on them a little bit and that is I think I see that a lot. It's like it seems like every SAS site is just the same. It's like somebody found it, loves it, and has just stole it and repeated a million times out there. Um, [sighs and gasps] there's a lot of really interesting customer acquisition strategies that I think can can help you. Um, [sighs] I think you know what I think it's worth investigating some of those promotional websites like AppSumo, right? I I don't know if you guys are familiar with that at all. Um, but like I think there is some really cool techniques that like we had a a SAS solution cloud app now they're Zite I think stupid name but it was like the best screen capture tool I've ever used and it's like a premium it's already premium right so like okay they're just getting all these free users and then we put them on AppSumo we got thousands and thousands and thousands of people to pay them like I don't know what it was 50 bucks or 100 bucks or whatever it was it was a nice like cash infusion into the business and Then and then we g you know we we made sure they had like two sales reps to actually just look at which were company emails that signed up look at the companies look at the size of the company you know easy to do in a CRM even to have it be pretty automated and then just direct outreach to those companies to be like hey we we know that there are user there are employees using our software what if you bought it for other employees it could you know help the bottom line blah blah blah whatever right so they had like a clear we had we set up a clear path to sort of like, okay, how to leverage that opportunity, but it didn't, you know, but it's it's just like a model where, you know, you you get a chunk of of it's interesting, right? It's an interesting kind of customer acquisition strategy. It's not the long-term play. It's not the, you know, it's not the thing that you do. Um, I think trying to get on other websites and things like that, right? It's an easy one where you can go to other sites and be like, "Hey, I saw that you did this top 10 blah blah blah tools for this thing. Would you mind updating it and adding ours and stuff like that?" Right? People reach out to us all the time asking for that because we've got a bunch of guides of like the top 10 Shopify apps or the top 10 whatever, right? And so we get reached out to by people all the time. Um, you know, finding groups, right? Facebook groups and and Discord groups and you name it. You can usually find groups in your market of like who, right? Um, and you know, potentially kind of get after it. If you're enterprise, get some budget. [laughter] Yeah. Right. I don't know, right? I think like it just where you're at. [laughter] >> Yeah. I don't think you're going to secure Microsoft on a shoestring budget, >> but [laughter] you could. You never know, right? But that's like LinkedIn outreach and knocking on doors. And I think that's a great place to start. And I think LinkedIn is a really interesting one to me right now because it's still like it still works the way the old school social medias work. Um I don't know. How do you guys feel about this? I I just found that now they said 60% of the internet is bots. So now we've actually like crossed the threshold now, right? They're calling it it's the dead internet. >> No. >> I don't know. What do you guys think? >> I agree. I like [sighs and gasps] LinkedIn's a really challenging one for me because there's a lot of like if you look recent history it seems to be really good but then it also seems like so many people have jumped on it that there is a lot of uh I know on LinkedIn I got a I get a lot of stuff that is um is bots and and automation. It'll be interesting because they've specifically come out and said that they're doing what they can to stop uh advertising and things like that that are AI generated and bots. They're trying to actively reduce those, remove those, suspend. They're like, they're not kidding. They've even talked about like they'll suspend accounts forever and kick people off the platform if they're just >> Oh, yeah. >> And they've always been a little bit like strict about that because I use tools on my LinkedIn and they've I've been in LinkedIn jail a few times. >> Yeah. They they are very uh I've had apps that I've built even for personal use that are you know just bots and stuff to try to just like organize content and they'll be like no we're not going to allow that because you know they're like no we don't want you we want you on the site we want real people real eyeballs we don't want any you know robotic AI you know app gatekeepers for any of this stuff and so that may it'll be interesting to see if that continues if they allow that and as they start or if they keep going for that and then they don't allow those kinds of things in if that makes keeps people feeling safe, I guess, to actually like if I get a direct message that it is a person. Um, and and even then it's like they're they're talking a little bit about um some of these where they're outsourcing it. They don't want you they're really coming down on that, which I did that for a while for lead genen is I had somebody else would log in and they would do a lot of this. You know, you'd have somebody else be that front end and they're cracking down on that, too. They're like, we want it to be, you know, they they want it we want it to be directly personto person kind of stuff. So, um, we'll see how it goes. It's like, like I said, it's like everything is people start trying to g if it's a good game, they're going to try to game the system. >> Oh, marketers ruin everything. [laughter] >> Facts. >> Facts. I try I try to be a good I try to, you know, be a good marketer, but they ruin everything. [laughter] >> You didn't hear about that product unless somebody was marketing it properly. So, there's like that's the, you know, the ends of the coin there. >> It's true. That's very true. Yeah. >> All right. Well, thank you so much for your time. Uh I told you we we'd take up about an hour and we had taken up roughly an hour, maybe now a little bit more. Um we'll get those links out to you once this goes. It'll be out uh around January, I think about we're right now we're like beginning of the year somewhere like that where we'll have these out. We do it we always do it as a two-parter. So, there'll be a Tuesday and a Thursday release uh part one and part two and we'll let you know as those become available and uh happy to have you share them out everywhere and we'll we'll uh you know when we post and all that of course we'll you know hashtag you in there as well so that you'll get pinged and linked in post. >> No, no worries. Um I'm curious, Michael, who's your ideal customer profile look like? Is there like a certain size or for envision? Uh right now I'm targeting uh like small to midsize uh medical clinics um kind of small to mid-size businesses in general. Um mainly kind of startups, places that need uh like testing software or custom software development. Um still kind of building this out. Um it's been a bit of a journey. Uh first customer was not really my target audience. It was more uh someone I met through the co-starters program I went through to rebrand my company and it was just something uh I felt I could do and I took on the challenge and um reaching the end of that particular project. So I'm starting to ramp up into the new year trying to re remaunch or I guess remarket and trying to get some more business in. >> Okay. Yeah, I connected with you both on LinkedIn if I if I if I hadn't and if I have anybody in my network that could help or send an intro to or anything like that. I've got tons of SAS people in my network. Uh and so yeah, if I can help in any way, send you any connections or or anything like that, yeah, please let me know. I also know and maybe it could be even a fit for you, Rob, kind of on the mastermind side. Uh, I know a lot of So, I've been friends with a lot of agency owners just, you know, being agency owner and being in masterminds and always trying to grow it and whatnot. And the masterminds I was in, you know, you got to be doing like seven figures and up to start kind of like be in them. I think there's probably three of them that I'm really close with that like are buying software apps >> because uh, you know, I I think we all know that marketing agencies is a race to the bottom with AI and everything else. And so, you know, they're looking at it, some are looking at it as customer acquisition channels, some are looking at it as, you know, complimentary services to sort of what they already offer, you know, on a service level, but now they have the software that enables them to, you know, be more efficient, whatever it is, right? Um, but interesting enough, yeah, there's there's quite a few of them and I know like in their heads they think it's really going to be, you know, really easy. You know, there's synergistic and let's go for it. And then actually in [laughter] practice, they're like, "Oh, this is, you know, oh, it's not going as well as I thought, etc., etc." And they've got the marketing hat on, right? they know how to do the marketing aspect, but you know, and and uh I don't know what those problems necessarily are. You know, product market fit, whatever it, you know, I'm not really sure, but um yeah, I don't know if if those are kind of any good connections or anything like too for either of you. You know, I definitely got a couple of those guys for sure that I know are going through those growing pains right now. >> Yeah, that's that's a great market for me. That's one of my like ideal ones is somebody that's, you know, these somebody's gone through some acquisitions. They get to a point where they're like, "Okay, we got a lot of stuff. Uh, now what do we do?" You know, it's and it's usually trying to find those synergies where it's like, "Okay, we just went through, you know, we've got four or five things we've acquired, but how do we actually connect them in some way, form, or fashion so that it's not just, you know, we've just bought five different things. We actually have these things and we can at the very least be able to monitor, man, manage them and and metric them, you know, together." Uh, but also a lot of times it's like how can we make them work? Because they'll go into, as you probably know, you they'll go and buy like a whole bunch of families of stuff. So they'll get three or four apps that are sort of the same trying to like, you know, fill out that market. Well, now instead of having three apps in one market, you know, how do you make that one brand or one app that you can then manage and and take advantage of having that as opposed to just a customer list? >> Yeah. Yeah, makes sense. Mhm. So, yeah, and if there's any way I can help you, definitely I'll connect in. Uh, if I haven't already, I'll I'll accept in in LinkedIn and connect in there and keep an eye on it. And if there's anything there anything I can do to help you, I'm more than happy to do so. >> Yeah, likewise. If you guys are ever in Vegas, let me know. >> Oh, definitely. I just missed you. But oh, just I I while I was there, I was in uh the art district, and there's a place called Tap and Ash. If you're if you're at all into cigars and drinking and just having a really good social club, it's a really cool place. Um it's right there. It's right there's a wine bar right next door to it. And I can't remember what else is right there, but it's not it's like you can see the um Yeah, it's like it's right on the edge of it. I'm trying to think of what else was right there, but uh nice tap uh tap room stuff like that, too. Yeah. Yeah. Nice vibe on the inside. >> Really cool. Really got to meet the owner and his wife. Really really great people. And they're they're Las Vegas madeups, too. So, they've got some them and the people a lot of people there have got some pretty cool Vegas stories. >> No, this is great. I just moved here last year, so I'm still drinking from the fire hose and and I feel like a lot of people do ask me like I've lived here my whole life for certain things and I'm like I don't know. But a lot of people ask me for a good cigar lounge and I'm like, "Oh, I know a really good one where I live, but that's like 15 minutes from the strip." So, this is great. No, this is perfect. Thank you for this. >> H not a problem. I'm happy to happy to help. Like I said, happy to help anybody out where I can. So, >> yeah. >> Appreciate you guys. >> Thanks again. >> Have a good one. Have a good rest of your day. >> You, too. Cheers. Bye. Bye. >> Have a great Thanksgiving. Oh, you too. >> You, too. >> [music]
Transcript Segments
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Well, hello and welcome back. We are
continuing the season of building better
foundations. We are building better
developers the developer podcast. We are
in part two of a conversation with Samir
and we are going to Yes, I dropped his
last name because I was like it's very
pronouncable but I'm going to stumble
over it. So, we're just going to go with
Samir and I think he'll he'll be okay
with that. If not, I apologize. Uh, but
first should probably introduce myself.
My name is Rob Broadhead, one of the
founders of developer, also the founder
of RB Consulting, where we help you
assess technology and build a roadmap
for success. rb-sns.com.
Good news or good thing, bad thing. Uh,
good thing is
I'm I'm planning on a rather largest
vacation. And the good thing is is that
what AI does for you these days as far
as a um a travel agent. It is amazing
how much detail and information I was
able to get in like a sitting. And I'm
talking like a sitting of like I don't
know 30 to 60 minutes, something like
that. It was like it wasn't that long
and it was spitting out really awesome
stuff. Um, but this goes back to some of
the conversations we've had that you've
got to be able to understand how to do
prompts and how to talk to AI and things
like that. Uh, along those lines, if you
check out the rbsns.com site, there's
going to be some links. We're playing
around with a lot of little apps that
are they're like appletits, ways for us
to do uh AI and prompts and things like
that better. And I think they're just
great things. They're free. There's no
there's no cost. There's no something
like that. the ones that you have to
register for. It's really just so that
we can keep your data your data. Uh so
that you can, you know, the stuff you
put in there isn't getting mingled with
everybody else's. Uh we're not tracking
anything else. So this is really just to
try to help everybody do AI better
because we really try to avoid like the
Terminator situation where suddenly AI
has taken over. We want to make sure
that we all understand it good enough.
And that would be the downside is if you
are embracing AI like I do and you're
using it a lot a lot of different ways.
is if you're starting to say like, "Hey,
there's some great stuff." Then probably
like me, you're also finding situations
where it just is driving you insane
because you get into a loop or something
like that. And while yes, I've been able
to get some really cool stuff out of it.
Yes, I've also had more than a couple
times where I've wasted my time
basically trying to get it to do
something that I should have spent the
five minutes and done it myself. So,
choose your poison. I guess my poison I
chose is my guest host, my co-host over
here. And Michael is going to try not to
poison you while he introduces himself.
>> Hey everyone, my name is Michael Mosh.
I'm one of the founders of developer
building better developers. I'm also the
founder of Vinvision QA. If your
software is holding you back, it's time
for a change. You know, Envision QA
builds and tests reliable custom
solutions. Let's fix what's not working.
Check us out in envision qa.com.
Uh good thing, bad things. Uh guess good
things, we're getting into the holiday
season. I'm going to have uh or I guess
when this comes out, we'll be just out
of the holiday season. Uh but we're
recording this before the holidays, so
I'm going to actually hopefully have a
little bit of downtime, get caught up on
some games I got at my birthday a couple
months ago, and start getting into the
bad side of things, which is preparing
and planning out uh where the business
is going to be going into next year.
more working on the business than in the
business, but doing with some of the
things that, you know, [snorts] I really
don't like playing around with too much
like marketing and stuff. I'd rather be
writing code.
>> Uh well, hopefully uh as we're talking
into marketing, uh it's not so much
branding, but definitely marketing. Uh
hopefully it's something that you guys
can uh learn a little bit and hopefully
it's something that doesn't bother you
too much. Uh but we're going to dive
right back into our conversation with
Samir El Camune. And the yeah, spelling
it is going to be a little bit of a
challenge, but that's all right. We'll
have links so you can uh connect with
him. And here we go. Pencil's up. Time
to take notes.
>> Very good. Uh so I have a question for
you. So with all your years of
experience and the different kind of
hustles and um companies and products
you've been doing, can you give me an
example of one that went very badly? You
know, that didn't work or kind of didn't
exceed your expectations as to what you
were trying to do and then uh like how
did you handle that and how did you
learn from that for your next hustle?
>> Good question. Who do I want to throw
under the bus?
>> Um
you know what I I think this is an
interesting one. So we had this client
for actually quite a while called
Mealenders.
And what it is is it's a lozener, kind
of like a cough drop that you put in
your mouth and it is
uh very like minty or gives you kind of
like this menthol type sensation and
then it finishes really sweet. So you
kind of cure like a sweet whatever or or
or vice versa. One or the other. Sorry,
I can't remember. It's been a while. And
so what this product is intended to do
is sort of curb those like midnight
cravings, right? Oh, I'm going to go for
the potato chips or oh, I'm going to go
for the candy, whatever it is, right?
And so that's what this product is
intended to do. Really cool product,
great marketing, real problem, right?
All of the things that we were just
talking about sort of check off the
boxes. They went on Shark Tank, they
didn't get a deal, but they got tons of
traffic, obviously,
sales through the roof. Okay? And you
know, you could call it a overnight
success if you wanted to. Now, where is
Malters today? I don't know. I actually
haven't looked in there if their website
exists anymore. But the problem was that
they pretty much Yep. So, it looks like
they're gone. So, pretty much what
happened is they never listened to their
customer and they never listened to the
market. So, great idea. Couple of the
products were okay, but most people
weren't crazy about the flavors. They
were asking for more flavors. Most
people were kind of complaining about a
couple small components. Like, not
difficult things to solve and come out
with a version two or some new flavors
or a limited run to test whatever it is.
They had plenty of opportunity to to
test it. And because they never made any
changes and they just sort of, oh, we're
on Shark Tank and we get all this
traffic every time we air on Shark Tank.
It doesn't work like that. The first
time you air, you get tons of traffic.
Then every single time you air, you get
less and less and less and less, right?
I remember we would check Google
Analytics while it would air and
sometimes we get like five people on the
website. Wow. Cuz it's like the 50th
time it's aired at this point, right?
And so the point I'm making is it's
really important to listen to your
customer, try to gain feedback from your
customer, and pay attention to reviews.
And so now this is something that I
religiously do across the board pretty
much for anything. Whether it's a client
that's coming on board, whether I'm
investing in a business, whether I'm
trying to purchase a product, like we
all do this, right? We all Google like,
"Oh, this this product looks really
great. It's $1,000. Oh, what are the
reviews?" And then if I find problems,
okay, what are they doing to to try to
hedge this? And so often enough, I think
they just don't really do anything.
They're like, "Ah, the customer's
wrong." and and blah blah blah. But a
fast other example is we had a a client
that sells uh beauty products for for
older women and one of their products
came and it like something wasn't
working right like it the lipstick
wasn't wasn't you know coming out
correctly or something was wrong and so
they started getting a couple bad
reviews. Immediately identified what it
was. Immediately improved the packaging
of that product. reached out to every
single customer that ever bought that
product recently, even if they didn't
leave a review, even if they didn't have
any issues, said, "Hey, we found that
there was an issue. We want to replace
the product for free. We're going to
send you this new product." And guess
what happened? A bunch of incredible
reviews, people raving about their
product and service, right? And now you
got a bunch of of testimonials and
everything else coming your way. And so,
you know, that I'm not saying the
customer is always right, but I think
when you do take the Amazon approach and
put the customer first, uh, really
interesting things happen. And, uh, you
know, and you got to be willing to
iterate on your business or service or I
don't care what it is, like software
gets old, like everything gets old,
right? You got to update it. You got to
make it more beautiful. You got to
update the packaging, whatever it is to
stand out in the market. And so often I
just see it's like, well, we're doing
good, so why change anything?
>> So, I love those two examples. That
that's perfect. It's like innovate or
die, but you have to listen to your
customers and, you know, if you're not
getting good reviews or there's
something wrong, you got to fix it. And,
you know, then make sure you know, make
sure that the customer understands that,
you know, they are being valued as a
customer, that their feedback is
important. Uh, those are two critical
things. So,
of course, we live in a new age of AI.
Uh, what are some of the changes you've
had to make or that you see coming
within your industry where you're having
to either use AI or you found ways to
improve on finding those analytics that
the performance, get that customer
feedback quicker than having to like dig
through all the different data models. H
I I think there's probably two key
areas. Uh one, I obsess over split
testing everything. I'm like my brain
just works like that now for better or
for worse. So, I think all of this
enables us to split test just so much
faster across everything where before,
okay, maybe I had to hire a really
expensive copywriter to come up with
some new split tests on copy or I had to
hire a big creative team in order to
come up with 20 new hooks and new video
variations for each one of those hooks
or whatever it is. So, I think it, you
know, on one hand, it allows us to just
test so much faster, which I just I
love. If you're not testing things, like
start testing things. Uh, right, you
could be making a lot more money. Uh but
on the other hand I you know I I think
it also is sort of like this amazing
great equalizer which is so cool where
you know five years ago 10 years ago or
more if you started your business
you know you were more a pigeon holder.
You didn't have as many you know tools
or resources or opportunities at at
hand. You know to create an incredible
video would have cost you $150,000. Now
you can pretty much do it, you know,
with no w with with practically no
experience almost, right? And and it's
only getting faster and and and
exponentially growing. And so I just
feel like it creates immense
opportunity, but the other thing is it
can also create sort of shiny object
syndrome sometimes and we have to be a
little careful of that. And so I think
that's where I'd probably encourage
everyone to just make sure they are
being really calculated about about what
they're going about testing and and and
doing things. Like I'm all for testing
as many AI tools as possible, but I'm
very clear in my methodology of doing so
of like, okay, which AI tools benefit
what I'm doing on a daily basis the
most? And then, okay, I can also on the
weekend test these little cool random
things that aren't going to benefit my
life, but I just want to test it out and
see how it works and what it does,
right? And so, you know, and at the end
of the day, I think if you're not
educating yourself on it, you're going
to get left. You're already being left
at the station. And so no matter what,
you just got to be spending some time
learning this stuff and and obsessing
over it and figuring out where it fits
into, you know, either your role, you
know, your your department, your
company, whatever it is, and just making
sure that that you are,
you know, being uh
yeah, ju just pushing things forward
because I think that's at at the end of
the day all all of us are really looking
for.
So, do you have a um since you obsess
over it, do you have a uh a methodology
or sort of a standard approach you take
in your evolution of of split testing as
far as like cuz like you said you can
that's I think sometimes the problem is
that there's so many things that you can
tweak here and adjust there. Is there uh
if there is is there sort of a method to
your madness that you you can take as
sort of a a rule of thumb?
>> Yeah, I love data. I think we're all
data guys here, right? At the end of the
day, data is everything to me. So, I
always try to look at the data. Um, you
know, and and find where where those
bottlenecks are. And so, I think of, you
know, I probably two very specific
examples so that people can have like
action steps here would be, you know,
one just map out every step of your
customer journey. Just map it out on a
piece of paper, whatever it is, right?
So, it's like, okay, first first point,
maybe maybe a friend referred them.
That's one referral. And maybe there was
an ad, maybe there was a cold email,
maybe there was a phone call, maybe
there's a LinkedIn message, whatever
that front-end thing is. Okay, then they
came to this landing page. Okay, what do
I want? What action do I want them to
take here? And what percentage of people
are doing it, right? So, okay, I want
them to go to this web page. I want them
to stay for more than a minute. I want
them to go to the next page. Okay,
great. 5% of people do that. Okay,
great. Mark that down. Then, you know,
how many people are booking a demo or
doing that next step? And just
understand what the what the percentages
are in between each one. And then where
is the lowest percentage? That's the
place to start, right? And and then what
I would do, a very easy solution is
putting heat mapping, you know, on your
site. Everybody's got a website at this
point or a software solution of some
kind and and and you can put Microsoft
Clarity on. It's free. Uh there's other
tools like Hot Jar, you know, Hot Jar
and Crazy Egg and there's other tools
out there, but you know, I always just
tell people Microsoft Clarity because
it's free and it's pretty darn good in
comparison to the other tools out there.
and and then just let that put on the
you know put that on the website and let
it sit there for a little while, few
days, a few weeks depending how much
traffic you have and then go look at the
screen recordings and look at the heat
maps. You will re you'll start to
understand what's going on really
quickly because you can sort of creepily
see what people are doing on the
recordings on your site. Where are they
scrolling past? Where are they stopping?
What are they reading? Where are they
clicking? And the heat maps will really
showcase where they're clicking and
where they're not going. So that teeny
little section at the bottom of the
website that you've been split testing
like a hundred times and you're like
nothing's happening, but no one scrolls
that far down. [laughter]
Okay, split testing that probably
doesn't make any difference whatsoever.
But that second section that all of a
sudden everyone's been looking at
because it's below the video. It has the
call to action button and everyone is
clicking on that and it's the high, you
know, the the the biggest concentration
of clicks. Okay, maybe we split test a
different call to action or a different
title above it or something and see if
that has any kind of positive, you know,
impact and and again use data to do it.
There's like AB split testing tools and
different things that you could do so
you could see statistically
if that is a, you know, winning sort of
observation or or not. Uh those are
usually some of the easiest things to
do. You could certainly get a lot more
advanced with it, uh, you know, with
with with user testing and and lots of
other really, you know, intricate
things, but that's definitely like, you
know, you probably hire an agency to do
that because they could probably do it
more efficiently and faster and
reporting better and all those kinds of
things. And I think that's just the size
you're at, right? [snorts] If you're a
really big company and you're doing
seven, eight figures,
probably reach out to really good
agencies, do your due diligence, ask
lots of questions, try to make sure that
they'll kind of educate you along the
way instead of like, oh, trust us,
every, you know, we kind of we take care
of it. We're the experts. You don't
worry about it. Uh, but if you're just
starting out or you're a soloreneur or,
you know, you're doing six figures or
less, like, okay, then you you got to
run some of this yourself and and test
it out yourself. And and I think that
that's where it's really easy to get
overwhelmed uh by, you know, how many
things there always are to do. And I
totally understand and I and I
sympathize. We've all been there. Uh but
just, you know, starting out with a
couple small things to say, okay, hey,
you know, what would have the biggest
impact on my business and just start on
that? Hey, I need more demos. Okay, why
am I not getting more demos? I get a lot
of traffic, but they're not booking a
demo. Okay, then that's the problem that
I need to solve. or I don't have a lot
of traffic. Okay, that's probably why no
one's booking demos. Okay, what do I do
to get more traffic? Right? And so just
trying to find what the biggest problem
is sort of and then kind of applying
sort of, you know, the praos principle
like 8020 rule, right?
So I I love the whole AB testing. I'm a
test test driven developer by nature. I
I love that. Um, [clears throat]
one of the things that I do find
interesting and challenging for a lot of
people when trying to to kind of build
these funnels, build these testing is
how do you know when your message is too
big, like too broad or you're too niche?
It it's like how do you distinguish or
how do you identify when you're kind of
on one end of the spectrum or too far on
the other end of the spectrum? How do
you kind of narrow that back down to
that sweet spot? Yeah, that's a really
good question. Uh, I'm obsessing over
exactly that right now with um with the
company Capital Logix that I'm
consulting for because it's like a very
indepth tra sophisticated trading
platform that's sort of like any high
net worth individual could could utilize
and they don't need to be a technical
trader. But then it can also be sort of
like a fund in a box for people who like
are very technical traders. Okay. And I
bring this up because I think it's a
prime example of making sure sort of a
couple different things. So one, you
really want to make sure So yeah, I I
don't like super broad. I hate super
broad. I don't want super broad. I want
to land on your website and in two
seconds I want to know what you do. I
can't stand when I when it's like that
really oh we innovate technology and
produce solutions to advance humanity.
What? Right. Like okay. No. Right. If I
got to go spend another five minutes on
your website to figure out what you do,
there's a massive problem. Now, so I
like to be as specific as possible. Now,
if I start talking about how I hedge
strategy, you know, hedge risk with
advanced strategies for alpha generation
and now you're like, what? Right? Like,
what's alpha gener? What are you talking
about? Okay, now that sentence makes
perfect sense to a trader. And if all
I'm trying to do is is get in front of
traders, then it's going to be good.
It's going to be a good message and
that's going to be a great way to to go
about it. But if I can also get in front
of other people who aren't traders, uh,
and then that gets a little too
technical, then maybe I can like bubble
it up a little bit more, just like one
layer up to just be a little bit not
broad, but maybe a little bit more
generic so it's not just like industry
specific. I see this on LinkedIn all the
time. people messaging me and they're
like, "Oh, do you you know," and they're
just sending me all these analogies and
I'm I I literally have no idea what
you're saying to me. You're clearly
going I'm I'm either not in your
industry or you got to come up with some
better messages, right? And so, you
know, and that is where you can make
like really big impacts actually in a
lot of your messaging and and and how
you're going about talking about your
business because you're you're being,
you know, as you want to be as specific
to your end customer as humanly
possible. And so the more information
you know about them, demographics, where
they live, their pains are, what their
fears are, whatever it is, the more
specific you can get the messaging, you
know, the better it's going to resonate
with them. And so, you know, I I try to
avoid being broad at all costs. And, you
know, and and sometimes like I think
brands try to shy away from humor and
cheekiness and other things too because
they want to be professional and and I
think sometimes actually just putting a
little humor in there and and adding a
little bit of, you know, human touch. I
think sometimes also makes a massive
impact too. Uh, you know, like one of my
favorite marketing agencies as an
example, like literally I think all the
call to actions on their website are
click the damn button,
[laughter] you know. It's great. It's
great.
[sighs]
Well, I want to thank you so much for
your time as we're starting to sort of
hit the uh the limit here. Um, but
you've given us a lot of information.
So, for all of those that are out there
that may be saying, "You know what? I
think I would like to spend more time
and see where you could help uh you
know, maybe you could help me out a
little bit." Uh, what would be some
great ways for them to get a the best
ways for them to get a hold of you?
>> Well, I'm the only community in the
world, so it's pretty easy to find me.
Um, you know, LinkedIn is usually
probably the best place professionally,
pretty active there and and whatnot. So,
yeah, please shoot me a message. Got
nothing to sell anybody. Just want
everybody to succeed at the end of the
day. Uh, and I want us all to win and
and everybody to make more money. And
uh, if I can give you one teeny tiny
little thing to help you do that,
amazing. Yeah, if you want to send me
your website, I can give you a little
feedback on it really fast, just what I
see in two seconds, you know, if if I
understand what you do or not. And if
I'm not your target fit, then that's
okay. Like we just talked about, right?
But, uh, I can still kind of understand
if it fits the needs or not. And, uh,
yeah, I appreciate the time, guys. This
has been fun.
>> All right. Well, thanks so much. Um, we
will, uh, we'll wrap this one up and let
you get back to your busy day. Uh,
again, appreciate your time and and
hanging out with us and, uh, we'll talk
to you again soon.
>> Thanks, Michael. Thanks, Rob.
>> All right.
Okay. And, um, yeah, we do this, uh, we
do have like a, you know, video
recording outside of this. We sometimes
have bonus material and and stuff like
that. Um, we'll send send you links once
we get this done. Feel free to share.
>> Yeah, all good. Yeah, if you do anything
on LinkedIn or Insta, just tag me
because I got pretty good followings in
both and I can repost and whatnot. Um,
any feedback you have for me?
>> Um, not really. There was like it was
really good especially because I know it
sort of puts you u that's the problem
with having like you know having people
that like sign you up and do these
things is sometimes and even I know as
being a a guest on podcast sometimes
you're like okay I'm going to jump on
this and then it's your second or third
this week you're like okay what am I
talking about? what is the, you know,
what is the market and and target
audience and u you did a great job just
you know diving in and that's the best
thing is you know we've got somebody
like yourself that knows your you know
knows your your domain and you know can
definitely talk freely about it and
that's where we get that's where we
always get some of the best
conversations and and the best
information. So, uh, as a I guess as a
parting thought for those that are like
as our sort of the bonus materials, what
would be, um, now you mentioned, you
know, sort of, uh, Reddit and and
digging into social sites, but if
somebody was starting out and they just
they've got a shoestring budget. Uh,
what would you recommend for their best
way to get started, try to get some
advertising and try to to get out there
and and get themselves heard? Um, do you
have an example where you think like of
a of you know an [snorts] industry or
something like that? Because I think
that's where things it's very it's
>> Oh, that's probably Well, let's go with
the SAS because you you you sort of
picked on them a little bit and that is
I think I see that a lot. It's like it
seems like every SAS site is just the
same. It's like somebody found it, loves
it, and has just stole it and repeated a
million times out there.
Um, [sighs and gasps]
there's a lot of really interesting
customer acquisition strategies that I
think can can help you.
Um,
[sighs]
I think
you know what I think it's worth
investigating some of those promotional
websites like AppSumo, right? I I don't
know if you guys are familiar with that
at all. Um, but like I think there is
some really cool techniques that like we
had a a SAS solution cloud app now
they're Zite I think stupid name but it
was like the best screen capture tool
I've ever used and it's like a premium
it's already premium right so like okay
they're just getting all these free
users and then we put them on AppSumo we
got thousands and thousands and
thousands of people to pay them like I
don't know what it was 50 bucks or 100
bucks or whatever it was it was a nice
like cash infusion into the business and
Then and then we g you know we we made
sure they had like two sales reps to
actually just look at which were company
emails that signed up look at the
companies look at the size of the
company you know easy to do in a CRM
even to have it be pretty automated and
then just direct outreach to those
companies to be like hey we we know that
there are user there are employees using
our software what if you bought it for
other employees it could you know help
the bottom line blah blah blah whatever
right so they had like a clear we had we
set up a clear path to sort of like,
okay, how to leverage that opportunity,
but it didn't, you know, but it's it's
just like a model where, you know, you
you get a chunk of of it's interesting,
right? It's an interesting kind of
customer acquisition strategy. It's not
the long-term play. It's not the, you
know, it's not the thing that you do.
Um, I think trying to get on other
websites and things like that, right?
It's an easy one where you can go to
other sites and be like, "Hey, I saw
that you did this top 10 blah blah blah
tools for this thing. Would you mind
updating it and adding ours and stuff
like that?" Right? People reach out to
us all the time asking for that because
we've got a bunch of guides of like the
top 10 Shopify apps or the top 10
whatever, right? And so we get reached
out to by people all the time. Um, you
know, finding groups, right? Facebook
groups and and Discord groups and you
name it. You can usually find groups in
your market of like who, right? Um, and
you know, potentially kind of get after
it. If you're enterprise,
get some budget.
[laughter]
Yeah. Right. I don't know, right? I
think like it just where you're at.
[laughter]
>> Yeah. I don't think you're going to
secure Microsoft on a shoestring budget,
>> but [laughter] you could. You never
know, right? But that's like LinkedIn
outreach and knocking on doors. And I
think that's a great place to start. And
I think LinkedIn is a really interesting
one to me right now because it's still
like it still works the way the old
school social medias work. Um I don't
know. How do you guys feel about this? I
I just found that now they said 60% of
the internet is bots. So now we've
actually like crossed the threshold now,
right? They're calling it it's the dead
internet.
>> No.
>> I don't know. What do you guys think?
>> I agree. I like [sighs and gasps]
LinkedIn's a really challenging one for
me because there's a lot of like if you
look recent history it seems to be
really good but then it also seems like
so many people have jumped on it that
there is a lot of uh I know on LinkedIn
I got a I get a lot of stuff that is um
is bots and and automation. It'll be
interesting because they've specifically
come out and said that they're doing
what they can to stop uh advertising and
things like that that are AI generated
and bots. They're trying to actively
reduce those, remove those, suspend.
They're like, they're not kidding.
They've even talked about like they'll
suspend accounts forever and kick people
off the platform if they're just
>> Oh, yeah.
>> And they've always been a little bit
like strict about that because I use
tools on my LinkedIn and they've I've
been in LinkedIn jail a few times.
>> Yeah. They they are very uh I've had
apps that I've built even for personal
use that are you know just bots and
stuff to try to just like organize
content and they'll be like no we're not
going to allow that because you know
they're like no we don't want you we
want you on the site we want real people
real eyeballs we don't want any you know
robotic AI you know app gatekeepers for
any of this stuff and so that may it'll
be interesting to see if that continues
if they allow that and as they start or
if they keep going for that and then
they don't allow those kinds of things
in if that makes keeps people feeling
safe, I guess, to actually like if I get
a direct message that it is a person.
Um, and and even then it's like they're
they're talking a little bit about um
some of these where they're outsourcing
it. They don't want you they're really
coming down on that, which I did that
for a while for lead genen is I had
somebody else would log in and they
would do a lot of this. You know, you'd
have somebody else be that front end and
they're cracking down on that, too.
They're like, we want it to be, you
know, they they want it we want it to be
directly personto person kind of stuff.
So, um, we'll see how it goes. It's
like, like I said, it's like everything
is people start trying to g if it's a
good game, they're going to try to game
the system.
>> Oh, marketers ruin everything.
[laughter]
>> Facts.
>> Facts. I try I try to be a good I try
to, you know, be a good marketer, but
they ruin everything. [laughter]
>> You didn't hear about that product
unless somebody was marketing it
properly. So, there's like that's the,
you know, the ends of the coin there.
>> It's true. That's very true. Yeah.
>> All right. Well, thank you so much for
your time. Uh I told you we we'd take up
about an hour and we had taken up
roughly an hour, maybe now a little bit
more. Um we'll get those links out to
you once this goes. It'll be out uh
around January, I think about we're
right now we're like beginning of the
year somewhere like that where we'll
have these out. We do it we always do it
as a two-parter. So, there'll be a
Tuesday and a Thursday release uh part
one and part two and we'll let you know
as those become available and uh happy
to have you share them out everywhere
and we'll we'll uh you know when we post
and all that of course we'll you know
hashtag you in there as well so that
you'll get pinged and linked in post.
>> No, no worries. Um I'm curious, Michael,
who's your ideal customer profile look
like? Is there like a certain size or
for envision?
Uh right now I'm targeting uh like small
to midsize uh medical clinics um kind of
small to mid-size businesses in general.
Um mainly kind of startups, places that
need
uh like testing software or custom
software development. Um
still kind of building this out. Um it's
been a bit of a journey. Uh first
customer was not really my target
audience. It was more uh someone I met
through the co-starters program I went
through to rebrand my company and it was
just something uh I felt I could do and
I took on the challenge and um reaching
the end of that particular project. So
I'm starting to ramp up into the new
year trying to re remaunch or I guess
remarket and trying to get some more
business in.
>> Okay. Yeah, I connected with you both on
LinkedIn if I if I if I hadn't and if I
have anybody in my network that could
help or send an intro to or anything
like that. I've got tons of SAS people
in my network. Uh and so yeah, if I can
help in any way, send you any
connections or or anything like that,
yeah, please let me know. I also know
and maybe it could be even a fit for
you, Rob, kind of on the mastermind
side. Uh, I know a lot of So, I've been
friends with a lot of agency owners
just, you know, being agency owner and
being in masterminds and always trying
to grow it and whatnot. And the
masterminds I was in, you know, you got
to be doing like seven figures and up to
start kind of like be in them. I think
there's probably three of them that I'm
really close with that like are buying
software apps
>> because uh, you know, I I think we all
know that marketing agencies is a race
to the bottom with AI and everything
else. And so, you know, they're looking
at it, some are looking at it as
customer acquisition channels, some are
looking at it as, you know,
complimentary services to sort of what
they already offer, you know, on a
service level, but now they have the
software that enables them to, you know,
be more efficient, whatever it is,
right? Um, but interesting enough, yeah,
there's there's quite a few of them and
I know like in their heads they think
it's really going to be, you know,
really easy. You know, there's
synergistic and let's go for it. And
then actually in [laughter] practice,
they're like, "Oh, this is, you know,
oh, it's not going as well as I thought,
etc., etc." And they've got the
marketing hat on, right? they know how
to do the marketing aspect, but you
know, and and uh I don't know what those
problems necessarily are. You know,
product market fit, whatever it, you
know, I'm not really sure, but um yeah,
I don't know if if those are kind of any
good connections or anything like too
for either of you. You know, I
definitely got a couple of those guys
for sure that I know are going through
those growing pains right now.
>> Yeah, that's that's a great market for
me. That's one of my like ideal ones is
somebody that's, you know, these
somebody's gone through some
acquisitions. They get to a point where
they're like, "Okay, we got a lot of
stuff. Uh, now what do we do?" You know,
it's and it's usually trying to find
those synergies where it's like, "Okay,
we just went through, you know, we've
got four or five things we've acquired,
but how do we actually connect them in
some way, form, or fashion so that it's
not just, you know, we've just bought
five different things. We actually have
these things and we can at the very
least be able to monitor, man, manage
them and and metric them, you know,
together." Uh, but also a lot of times
it's like how can we make them work?
Because they'll go into, as you probably
know, you they'll go and buy like a
whole bunch of families of stuff. So
they'll get three or four apps that are
sort of the same trying to like, you
know, fill out that market. Well, now
instead of having three apps in one
market, you know, how do you make that
one brand or one app that you can then
manage and and take advantage of having
that as opposed to just a customer list?
>> Yeah. Yeah, makes sense. Mhm.
So, yeah, and if there's any way I can
help you, definitely I'll connect in.
Uh, if I haven't already, I'll I'll
accept in in LinkedIn and connect in
there and keep an eye on it. And if
there's anything there anything I can do
to help you, I'm more than happy to do
so.
>> Yeah, likewise. If you guys are ever in
Vegas, let me know.
>> Oh, definitely. I just missed you. But
oh, just I I while I was there, I was in
uh the art district, and there's a place
called Tap and Ash. If you're if you're
at all into cigars and drinking and just
having a really good social club, it's a
really cool place. Um it's right there.
It's right there's a wine bar right next
door to it. And I can't remember what
else is right there, but it's not it's
like you can see the um Yeah, it's like
it's right on the edge of it. I'm trying
to think of what else was right there,
but uh nice tap uh tap room stuff like
that, too. Yeah. Yeah. Nice vibe on the
inside.
>> Really cool. Really got to meet the
owner and his wife. Really really great
people. And they're they're Las Vegas
madeups, too. So, they've got some them
and the people a lot of people there
have got some pretty cool Vegas stories.
>> No, this is great. I just moved here
last year, so I'm still drinking from
the fire hose and and I feel like a lot
of people do ask me like I've lived here
my whole life for certain things and I'm
like I don't know. But a lot of people
ask me for a good cigar lounge and I'm
like, "Oh, I know a really good one
where I live, but that's like 15 minutes
from the strip." So, this is great. No,
this is perfect. Thank you for this.
>> H not a problem. I'm happy to happy to
help. Like I said, happy to help anybody
out where I can. So,
>> yeah.
>> Appreciate you guys.
>> Thanks again.
>> Have a good one. Have a good rest of
your day.
>> You, too. Cheers. Bye. Bye.
>> Have a great Thanksgiving. Oh, you too.
>> You, too.
>> [music]