The only way to get buy-in from your team on anything "new" is if you live & breathe it first. Doesn't matter if it's a new onboarding process, way of doing a certain task, etc People don't like new. And if you decide new --> better, you have to literally put your full force behind it to have a shot of it sticking

You know someone's an absolute SHARK when they ask minimal questions + are comfortable sitting in silence. They're always taking a beat before speaking. And when they sense other people aren't focusing on the right thing, they attack it head on. Usually say something like "Cool cool... But can we agree that x, y, z is our top priority rn?" Love working with teams that are straight shooters

Seems like everyone's trying to solve fake problems with AI. Never understood the fetish around "getting to Inbox 0" or any tool used to reduce email clutter. Proxy problems imo

Keyboard gone in 5 years

The last thing you see before the 7/11 cashier takes an eternity to fill out your TA-Q-BIN card

A recurring belief I'm constantly breaking is that your customers/clients don't care about you as much as you think. You're just a tiny cog in their machine. Sure, if you mess up or stop doing the things your promised to do they're obviously going to notice and rightfully be on your ass. But as long as your team is dialed & you've set the right systems in place they don't ACTUALLY care if it's not your face on the weekly, bi-weekly, monthly calls. Because if you're doing things right, the time you spend away from the day-to-day ops will flow BACK to your customer in the form of: --> Higher quality talent --> Better performance --> Fewer fires But it's hard. For me, I think it's because I've tied my identity to being the guy who responds in <90 seconds. Always down to overdeliver at the expense of profit, daily focus, etc And that's for sure the best mentality to have when you're just getting of the ground, but it won't get you past a certain level. Time is finite. There's only so many high output hours you can squeeze out of yourself in a day until you're absolutely dead and can't work on higher leverage work. Reminder to self: You're not special --> Your team is

Keeping a close eye on competition is dangerous You’ll convince yourself it’s productive to “see what competitors are doing” But all that focus should be redirected on what actually matters -> Your team -> Your product -> Your customers Reminder to self ^

“Loyalty programs aren't profitable. You’re just giving up free $$$ to customers who would’ve come back anyways” False. Some of the BIGGEST businesses in the world were built off loyalty programs + gamifying the shopping behavior of their customers (ie. Casinos, KHOL’s Cash, Starbucks Stars) If your brand’s loyalty program feels like a waste of money, then you’re probably right. These programs don’t just work straight out the box. It takes a LOT of elbow grease to get it right… You have to understand $ Earned:$ Redeemed You have to play out different basket scenarios to see if your tiers are too steep And you have to REALLY understand what your customers value & how they buy from your brand… Because the goal of a loyalty program isn’t just about giving free stuff away —> it’s about changing the behavior of your customer. I’ll say it again. The goal of a loyalty program is to CHANGE THE BEHAVIOR of your customer. Get them to take an action they wouldn’t take if it weren’t for the psychological push of some reward. And it’s not always about $$$ > Exclusive access > Limited edition items > Gamified status trackers > Community status > IRL event tickets > Trialing unreleased products in development > Partnership or Ambassador opportunities It’s not a one size fits all. Having a clear, simple, GENUINELY valuable loyalty program gives your brand another tool to use across email, SMS, and Direct Mail Stop the sitewide sales. Use points/credits/cashback instead. It’s not rocket science, but it seems like 9 out of 10 brands have hyper confusing + poorly thought out programs.

Obsess over these 4 charts for world class customer retention 1. Cohort Tables 2. Product Journeys 3. LTV (3, 6, 12 months) 4. Repeat Purchases (Time between + nominal $) It only takes one golden nugget to unlock a new level of scale

Retention starts with the product There's no amount of ads, landers, emails, or postcards in the world that can convince someone to use a terrible product

Drop-based brands have "spiky revenue" I hear founders moan about it a lot But it's not a bad. If you play it smart, you can capitalize on your biggest drops of the year & juice another 20-30% out of them ex: Your Summer Capsule drop has sold out every year for the last 3 years Easy way to juice it: • Order 10% extra inventory • Build a VIP SMS list ~2 weeks before the drop • Drop the collection per usual • 24 hours after the drop is over, dm all SMS subscribers that joined VIP and let them know you "secretly saved a few pieces" And if you want to double down --> Send x2 follow-up emails to your core engaged list of subs Position as "Reserved for VIPs" and "Last Chance" Works well if you're confident in sell out

Whatnot is facing an OnlyFans problem. OnlyFans originally started for “fans” of all types… Musicians, artists, gamers, fandoms, etc Now the platform is notorious for 1 single use case. Same thing’s happening on Whatnot. The top 100 highest grossing sellers on WhatNot are all “selling”the same thing… Box breaks. Specifically gamified box breaks + giveaways that earn you entries. Pokemon. TOPS. Rare trading cards that sellers dress up in a way that feels like a lottery. There are a few legit brands (Battlbox, etc) that have seen a tiny spark of motion but I’m not sure how much they’ll actually be able to capitalize on live selling. Wholesalers. Liquidation. Re-sellers. These are the kinds of sellers that are kind of winning. But majority of GMV is flowing into box breaks/trading cards. Curious to see how things look in 6 months

Even crazier is how the announcers (and spectators) paid no attention to the second place runner. Broke the same record, won’t get the same recognition. History has a 1 name allowance

When you start caring about what day of the week it is, something’s gotta change

The biggest revolution of AI to date is that lazy people are starting to document things. How a process works. what you do at each step. etc. Not sure what people were doing before, but documentation is 2nd nature to anyone who's trained/hired/onboarded someone before

Peak "monitoring the situation" content

Every successful person I've met is a divergent thinker The kinds of people who cook up 50+ solutions/ways to attack a problem Extremely valuable skill for building agents, tools, etc.

“Infinite Minds” is an amazing frame

Never let a client's emotional state impact yours. They might come in fired up. Say that "you're to blame" or "you have no clue what you've done", just to forget about it the next day. These are bulls in china shops. If you can afford to fire them, do it. They'll only be a net negative in the long run. For you, and your team.