[93] 80/20 Hacks That Move the Needle for Us
Hey. We're back. This is Bootstrap Web episode 93. And as always, we're we're back for a topic episode today. My name is Brian.
Jordan Gal:Hey, Brian. I'm Jordan.
Brian Casel:How are doing, Oh, good to meet you.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Very nice. Glad we could get together today and make some time for for this demo. Gonna show you real quick how how CardHook works and what it can
Brian Casel:do for you. I don't know if I need CardHook though. I mean, do do you think I need it?
Jordan Gal:Do you need more sales?
Brian Casel:Sometimes. Try to
Jordan Gal:keep going. Okay. So put a join.me. No. Not joinme.com.
Jordan Gal:Join.me.
Brian Casel:Well, now wait. Do I have to turn my computer on first or is this how does this work?
Jordan Gal:What's up, man? Alright. So what's our topic today? We're talking eighty twenty.
Brian Casel:That's right. You know, I feel like this this concept of eighty twenty can be applied to so many different things. But, you know, what we're gonna talk about today is just a couple of eighty twenty tips that you and I have implemented in our lives or in our business that that have just, you know, just things that we've changed that had a a larger than expected impact on on results.
Jordan Gal:20, call it hacks, whatever word you wanna use, how we get more shit done in less time.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Exactly. Because, you know, I was just thinking about this the other day as I look back on a few changes that I made in my whether it was my routine or or just in my life or whatever, over the last couple of years that it's like, wow, when I started doing that, I I had no idea that it would actually stick and it would actually cause all these other good things to happen, or bad things to happen, or whatever. So like the what what made me think about it was so this week, I started running again. I'm I'm trying to get back into a routine of of of running, like every morning.
Brian Casel:And I think I talked about this in the past where my whole life I've struggled with, shin splints. You know, I used to play sports and whatnot when I was younger, and and that was never really a problem. But anytime I got into, like, long distance running, I can't really go farther than about two miles before my legs start to really get get painful, and it's almost impossible for me to run two days in a row. I I just figured, you know what, my body is not cut out to be a runner. Even though it's something that that interests me, and and and definitely now that I I am trying to care more about health and and fitness.
Brian Casel:And and I I see running and and just exercising as one of those, like, keystone habits where if you do it every morning, everything else starts to fall into place and and and be more efficient, and better sleep, and better work, and all that. So this time around, I figured, you know what? If I'm gonna try running again, let me actually research it, and read a book about it, and learn a thing or two about running. Because that's that's has been my problem. I never actually learned how to properly run.
Brian Casel:And so I found this this method called the pose method of running, which it's completely new to me. I'm sure there are other runners out there listening to this that are like, yeah, duh. That's like lesson number one when it comes to running. But, for me, it's it's totally new. And, you know, once I started to learn this method and and really embrace it, I mean, all it is is like a a different change in in stance, in the way that I in in the form of running.
Brian Casel:And it's like a super simple change in angle and and whatnot. But man, it's like it solves the shin splints problem completely. Like, shins feel great. I I could go I could run at least twice as far and and keep going. And I'm like actually excited to get back out there tomorrow.
Brian Casel:So it's like, you know, just this one simple change, whether it's changing the angle or just the decision to go read a book about running. Now and granted, this is only the first week of me running. But I I could see this being like a long term thing that I'm getting myself into here, all thanks to a very small change. So, you know, I I was thinking about that this week as I was running. And then I and and I was thinking about like, what are all these other little changes that we that we tweak certain times of the year and how has that had an impact on our on our lives and on our business?
Jordan Gal:I like that. I like I like that you start off with something that's non business y and I was slightly concerned. You and I haven't gone over what my list consists of and what your list consists of. And and there is chance for overlap, but the the chance for overlap has just been reduced by, you know, by, like, 20% because that I don't have that on my list. Okay.
Jordan Gal:I'm still in the I'm still in the category of my my body is just not not meant for running.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Perfectly valid conclusion.
Brian Casel:I'm not completely there yet. I'm still I'm still, you know, rusty and out of shape. So I don't know. But, should we get get right into it?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Let's do it. So my my first, I don't know, tip, advice, whatever conclusion, I guess I had this this thought a few weeks ago. I was in a conversation with someone and we were talking about doing a joint webinar. And the part of the conversation got to, okay, how big is your list?
Jordan Gal:Like, what are you bringing to the table? And I don't have a big list. We really haven't focused that much on building our email list. So we have a relatively small list. And what it made me think of, on the spot, I kind of had to come up with what I was bringing to the table.
Jordan Gal:And what it made me think of after the phone call was over was the the mindset shift, the ability to just to figure out how to use what you have, not to make it seem bigger than it really is, but how how to how to find leverage in what you have right now. Instead of making the excuses of, I can't do it because this or I can't do it because that, it's just taking what you have currently and then parlaying that up one step and then another step and another step and another step. So an example I always use is the Mixergy interview. Right? Like, once I had that, I used that to get other interviews.
Jordan Gal:And I used that to I mean, that's how I found Ben as a co founder. Just leveraging one thing after another. So in this conversation, I didn't have a list to offer, but what I did offer was, hey, I know my shit. I know how to optimize a checkout page for an e commerce store because I used to run my own e commerce business and I grew it to 500 ks in revenue in the first twelve months. So I just started listing all these assets that I could bring to the table even though I didn't have an email list, which is what the person ideally wanted.
Jordan Gal:And so I just thought about this concept of just looking at what you have. Oftentimes what you currently have, you dismiss or you downplay. You say, oh, that's not a big deal. Because you already know that you have it and it's not what you've been striving for every day and thinking about all the time. So you dismiss it or or downplay it, and you really shouldn't.
Jordan Gal:You you can play a lot of things up because they're valuable to other people. So that that's my kind of tip. It's don't you have to do anything else. You don't have you already have something regardless of what level you're at. You can use that to a higher extent than than you think.
Brian Casel:Yeah. What what's just one thing, one one positive benefit or or one thing that you have at one asset that you have that you can take one step further and take action on and and turn into something better. Like, you know, I I think there's so many people out there who who look at the more accomplished people in in our space and in in larger things, it's like, oh, well, how did you do that? How how did you get to a point where you can sell thousands and thousands of dollars of of a product? Or, you know, one question I I get a lot is, how how do you go and and get a guest post published on on Mashable, or on Smashing Magazine, or some or some big big name website like that?
Brian Casel:My very first guest post that I ever did was on some small freelancing website, you know, with a with a very a much smaller audience. So you have to kinda, you know, work your way up. For for years, I'd I'd started on on a small freelancer website, and then I kinda leveraged that to go get another guest spot, and then another one, and then and and years later, I I can get onto larger, you know, larger blogs. So it's really just all about taking action, and and just actions that you can take, and do the actions that that, you know, more people who who've done a lot of other things are doing every day anyway. You know, just send one email to a to a blog editor or a podcast or something.
Brian Casel:You know?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Yeah. You're looking at an end result. I like the concept of base camps. Right?
Jordan Gal:You look at you're if at sea level, you look at the top of Mount Everest, it is it seems it is impossible. But if you break it down into base camps, you can say, no, I'm just gonna go from here to here, and then get there and take a breath, and then go to the next base camp, and then the next one. So it's pointless to look at someone who's all the way up at the top of the mountain and say, oh, man, how could I possibly ever get that far up? The other thing I did with the person in a different setting was I offered them, Hey, if you want to be an affiliate for us and recommend us to your clients, we can name a template for you in the app. You'll have your own named template.
Jordan Gal:So when someone signs up for Kart Hook and they go to the templates page to pick a template for their abandoned cart campaign, your name will be in there. It's like, I already have this. That's an asset that I just basically conjuring up out of nothing, but it can be very valuable to them. So anyway, just just that concept of just using what you already have and making it into into more.
Brian Casel:Yep. Awesome.
Jordan Gal:Alright. Cool. What about you? What's next?
Brian Casel:One was, you know, for me, a couple years ago, I I started to make a little bit more of an effort to become an early riser. Wake up early. You know, because I I started it as a freelance. While I I had a job, but then I became a freelancer. And during my early years of freelancing, I mean, would routinely wake up at like nine 09:30, 10AM.
Brian Casel:Because I could I could work whenever I want to. And I was doing a lot of client work, but then as the years went on, especially in the last, like, two, three years, I became really serious about waking up early. And I can talk about a few tips for for those of you who are who are not such early risers and you wanna be, but, what what happened for me, what I what I learned was my mind works almost a thousand times better in the early morning hours than than I do in the afternoon or or the evening. And the first time that I've that this became apparent to me, and the reason why why I wanted to be start getting up early is a couple years ago, I'd be working on a lot of websites. And developing websites where routinely you you run into some challenge.
Brian Casel:Some some bug or or you're trying to build a feature, you just can't get it to work. I'm working on the app I'm working on it in the afternoon, working hours and hours on this thing into the night. I just can't get this stupid drop down menu to work or whatever it is. And I'm I'm staring at the same piece of code, the same design for literally like five or six hours, and then I'm like, screw it. I'm going to bed.
Brian Casel:I wake up in the morning. I open up my laptop. Literally within two minutes of waking up, the the solution stares me right in the face. It's like, oh, you know, you're you're missing this one comma. Or oh, you just didn't think about it this way.
Brian Casel:It's having that night's sleep and fresh in the morning before, even before coffee, even before breakfast, just getting into work and working on that thing. That happened to me so many times, like time and time again. And and then I'd start to, you know, started to clue into the idea that, you know what? My mind is just so much more efficient in the morning. So I need to focus my work hours in the morning.
Brian Casel:And so I started waking up around seven and then around six. And now today, I I still wake up sometime between six and seven, you know, no alarm clock, just body normally wakes up. I mean, I get in bed pretty early, you know. I'm I'm sleeping by like 10:30, 11:00. In bed like ten and and reading a little bit.
Brian Casel:But and so now my goal is to try to get all of my important work done before lunchtime. So any especially any kind of creative work. If I'm if I'm writing, if I'm designing, if I'm working on new marketing campaigns, like anything like that, I'm working on before lunch. And then after lunch I'm working a little bit less these days after lunch, because I'm traveling a lot. But if I have, like, calls to schedule, or or meetings I need to do, or kind of catching up on emails, or, you know, random crap can kinda fall into the afternoon.
Brian Casel:And I've even set up my Calendly bookable schedules so that you can only book time with me in certain hours in, like, between, like, two and 3PM most days.
Jordan Gal:Which is a great hack in itself. Control the availability of your Calendly, your schedule once, whatever you do Totally. Based on what you when you actually wanna talk to people.
Brian Casel:Exactly. I mean, there is no day of the week that you can book a time at, like, 10AM with me. But I am working from, like, 8AM to lunchtime. But those those early hours is when I'm getting getting a lot of stuff done. And and I'm working, like, way faster.
Brian Casel:I'm getting more done in in that time, all because, you know, it's it's the early morning hours.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I I like the morning. You know, having children, it makes you wake up pretty early. The thing I I always say is, you go to sleep whenever you want. They're still gonna wake up at the same time.
Jordan Gal:So that motivates you to go to sleep a little earlier. I like the afternoon, but everyone finds their rhythm. Alright. Cool. I like that.
Jordan Gal:My next eighty twenty tip is do a podcast. There is no more efficient way to build authority, credibility, and audience, and what I like to build content. So the the CartHook podcast, if you go to the CartHook blog right now, it's just a bunch of podcast posts because those are the only ones I actually end up having time to do. So I think doing a podcast is a severe eighty twenty hack. It is it is a finite amount of time, and and then it lives on forever as content, as credibility, as authority, all these amazing benefits that you get from sharing what you learn, sharing what your expertise is, sharing just people hearing your voice.
Jordan Gal:So I think I think that's that's been one of the biggest, most impactful things I've done over the past few years. And the same goes for a guest podcast. Know, trying to do a guest post takes hours. Trying to do PR, all these different things take a long time. You schedule an inter interview with someone, you show up, you do it for an hour, and then you're done.
Jordan Gal:And then that lives on as a piece of marketing collateral, and it brings you traffic and a link and everything else.
Brennan Dunn:So that's that's one
Jordan Gal:of my favorites.
Brian Casel:And podcasts are great that because you can also reuse that content. You can transcribe all the content into a written blog post. You can turn it into a video. You you like a YouTube put
Jordan Gal:it into your auto into your newsletters. I mean, it's it's content. It's it's good, solid content you can use all over the place. We we include links to CardHook podcasts and guest podcasts in our onboarding emails, in the emails we send to people while they're trialing so that we build up more credibility while they're they haven't made the decision to to become a paying customer yet. I mean, we we use it anyway we can.
Brian Casel:Awesome. Cool. So my next one, this is another kind of lifestyle thing. I I promise the the final three things on my list are are definitely more business focused. But this one is the Bulletproof Coffee and the Bulletproof Diet.
Brian Casel:This is The diet
Jordan Gal:diet too?
Brian Casel:Yeah. I I got into the whole thing. I I think you were one of the first people who mentioned it to me, but also my my my late friend, Clint Warren was all about this and he really inspired me to take the whole diet seriously too. About, what was it, like a year I guess over a year ago, I read the book. My wife and I both read the the Bulletproof Diet book and just kinda got on board with the whole concept and all the all of the, the theory behind all this stuff.
Brian Casel:Like eating good fats and kind of limiting carbs, but not limiting calories. Like not caring about counting calories or anything like that. Just eating a bunch of really tasty good stuff and putting, you know, grass fed butter on on everything and and eating only organic and and and that that kind of, good stuff. So I I mean, I can't say it's been a 100%, on that sort of diet every single day for the last year. There have definitely been months like the current months right now where where we kind of fall off a little bit.
Brian Casel:But but that's also a good thing about about this diet is like once you kind of learn what it's all about and and kind of the know, because there's there's a of myths when it comes to to dieting out there. Like like counting calories and like picking out the low fat or reduced fat Wheat Thins at the at the supermarket. Like that stuff is just crap for you, you know. I think just learning about those things, you you can can go out and eat pizza or eat a burger once in a while, but you you know, when you come back home, when you go food shopping, it's just making smart choices. And the impact this has had, and and also the the Bulletproof Coffee, which I drink every morning, I mean, for energy and and productivity.
Brian Casel:And it's not I think when I first heard about it and what what most people hear about it's like, oh my god, is this thing gonna is it like it like Red Bull? Am I gonna like go crazy off the wall all day? Like, no. It's really more about sustained focus and sustained energy throughout the day. Whereas before, when I'm drinking regular coffee or something, it's you know, I'll get the the energy burst for a couple of hours and then I need another one in the afternoon.
Brian Casel:And then I need another one late afternoon. And this And
Jordan Gal:then it affects quality of your sleep and
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. With Bulletproof Coffee, I found I'm way more focused, much more efficient in terms of just packing in more productivity in in every hour. As I said, especially in the morning hours, It's just been really solid. And and it's literally the only kind of dieting or nutrition related hack that I've ever stuck with, you know, in my whole life.
Brian Casel:I've I've never I've never been a dieter and and this is one thing that really made a huge impact.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I I remember, like, in, like, my teens and early twenties, I used to just whatever the worst possible thing on the menu, just like the gnarliest possible, most satisfying, like, manly man food on the menu is what I would eat. And then I'd be surprised that I felt like shit afterward. At at some point, you get a clue that ignoring your diet, if you're concerned about productivity and your energy level and what you can accomplish, diet's just a big, big part of it. So it's yeah.
Jordan Gal:I think it's good not to ignore and to kind of tweak. I love the Bulletproof Coffee. I go back and forth on it. I use I use cold brew. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:And just to add to that, I would say standing. Standing while you work. I'm so much happier when I'm standing and with music on than any other state. And and, yeah, I I literally just end up, like, jamming out half dancing.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Like a What? Like a standing desk?
Jordan Gal:You know, I have it at the coworking space, and I don't have one at home. And I find myself so so annoyed by it that that's that's what I'm, you know, buying myself for the holidays.
Brennan Dunn:Very cool.
Jordan Gal:Yep. That that's my my tax, you know, scheme right there to to get us to get standing desk in in December.
Brian Casel:So a couple weeks ago, it it was my birthday. I kinda bought myself a birthday gift. I caved in and I got the Apple Watch. And thing just like taps me every hour. They have time to stand up and stretch.
Brian Casel:It keeps track of how active are you being every day and that sort of stuff. And that was my excuse. If I'm gonna get one of these, I actually have to try to be more active and think health. But I should not give the impression that I'm a total health nut. Far, far from it.
Brian Casel:My my challenge has always been eating out, which we do a ton of now that we're traveling. And I I still order the the worst stuff on the menu. It's I think it's just more about, like, when when we eat at home and and, you know, the stuff that my wife cooks and what we buy at the grocery store, we're making a little bit better choices there. But really, the the whole point of this this item on our list here is it's it's so true, especially, like, the the days that I'm that I drink Bulletproof coffee and the stretches of weeks where I know that I'm eating healthier, I def it's clear night and day. I'm getting more stuff done.
Brian Casel:I'm being more productive. Better things are happening in my business. And that's really the only reason I I really care so much about
Jordan Gal:That's that kind the feedback loop you need. Then you feel better and then you connect it. And you say, I eat better, I do better and I'm more productive. So it makes you wanna exercise more and eat better. That's the right cycle to get into.
Brian Casel:And I've suffered from headaches and sinus headaches for like really all my life and it's again, it's direct relationship. It's it's the weeks when I'm eating crap that I'm that I'm getting the headaches and, yeah, totally.
Jordan Gal:Alright. Nothing but business from here on out from
Brian Casel:you. Okay. Probably.
Jordan Gal:No. I I think I think those are both great. Alright. Mine my next one is is gets into the weeds a little bit. And and that is if you have an online business so without too much caveat, what we have done we lately in Karthook that has made this really big impact is we have used technology to identify our best prospects, and then we have combined that with simple technology like email to actually make it useful.
Jordan Gal:So what do I mean by that? So we have a bunch of trials and we've started looking at metrics. What makes a good prospect? What makes someone more likely to be a paying customer and higher end paying customer at that? Then we work backwards and we try to bring those metrics into the trial period so we see what platform they're on, how much revenue they make in general, how much recovered revenue they make through our app.
Jordan Gal:So now we're tracking all these and that's the tech part of it. That's the, how do we track that? How do we separate it out? How do we identify? Are they during a trial or are they not?
Jordan Gal:So that's the part that the tech team, right? So I'm feeding that up into what my gut feelings are and what our metrics tell us on what to focus on. And then they've built that and then the next step that actually makes it useful is they've built email alerts. So, Hey, Jordan, this trial has made $1,000 in revenue this week, but has not launched. So that all of a sudden gets it put on my to do list as something that I have determined ahead of time is very important for the business.
Jordan Gal:So when I get an email from this system saying, hey, Jordan, these guys have made a thousand bucks in revenue, but they haven't launched their campaign yet, it tells me, alright, this is worth my time. Let me give them a call. You say, hi, I'm Jordan. I'm the founder. Thanks for signing up.
Jordan Gal:I saw that you're all set up but haven't launched. What can I do to help? Is there something that's holding it up? And then I then instead of looking at, oh my god, all these trials, I can't get into a a twenty minute conversation with everyone. I won't do anything.
Jordan Gal:It identifies and brings to the top the people that I should spend time on. So that that's been a very impactful kind of hack. So I guess I would call that like identifying your best prospects in a in a programmatic way and then making it useful with email.
Brian Casel:I like it. By the way, do you do you require the phone number when they sign up?
Jordan Gal:Yes and no. So no, we don't require it when they sign up.
Brian Casel:But in order lead.
Jordan Gal:No. In order to complete step one of the integration process, we're sending emails on people's behalf, so we require require physical address, the stuff that you need according to CanSpan rules. So we have them put the phone number in there. So we have their phone number. Also, most ecommerce stores most ecommerce stores have their phone number somewhere on their site.
Jordan Gal:So we we can we can get the phone number.
Brennan Dunn:Cool. Yep.
Brian Casel:Alright. So let's let's talk business here. My next tip is just charge more. I think, I think Patrick McKenzie would be happy to hear me say that one. It's it's so easy to say, and and it in some ways, seems obvious, but there are sometimes, like, unforeseen benefits from charging more.
Brian Casel:And this gets into choosing a business model where you can charge more, choosing which product to work on, you know, which market to serve when you're charging more in order to enable you to charge more. I guess, you know, just thinking about a couple of different things over the last couple of years in my business. I mean, just on my mind right now, comparing my years working on Restaurant Engine to my years working on Audience Ops. I mean, Audience Ops has already surpassed the revenue level that that I had in Restaurant Engine at the time that I exited. And we're, what, less than less than six or seven months into Audience Ops.
Brian Casel:And I worked on on Restaurant Engine for, like, four years. SaaS business with plans ranging from 49 to 99 a month, versus Audience Ops, which ranges from like 1,000 to $2,000 a month, as of this recording. It's it's a totally different thing. You don't need as many clients to, you know, to make it a viable business and to give you the resources that you need to pump oxygen into the business. Meaning hiring a team, doing marketing, you know, paying paying more to acquire a lead.
Brian Casel:All this stuff, everything gets easier when when you have that that kind of revenue level coming in. And that and that got into, you know, my criteria for the type of business that I was looking for when I was selecting different businesses. And we did a whole episode about that a few months back, where I kinda talked about, you know, comparing the different businesses that I was considering getting into. And this one really checked off the boxes when it came to the market that I wanna serve, you know, b to b online businesses that are, you know, somewhat established. I mean, we do work with some startups, but, they have budgets to spend.
Brian Casel:And and this is a marketing service which helps them bring a return on investment. So, again, they're they're willing to spend more for that sort of thing. Know, these were things that were kind of on my mind when I was choosing this model. And then, you know, the other thing that I think about is, the educational products that I've done over over the last few years. Productize, which in the grand scheme of things is not a very expensive info product compared to others which cost thousands.
Brian Casel:I mean, Productize costs, between $3.95 and $5.95. Before that, I I launched Productize about a year ago. A year before that, I had launched an e book called Design for Conversions, which ranges from $29 either 29 or 39 up to, I think, $1.49 or $1.99, something like that. Kind of the typical, you know, Nathan Barry model that of launching an e book product with some videos and and whatnot. And that's done okay, but it it never provided a a consistent revenue level.
Brian Casel:Even when I made a bunch of sales, you know, at the 29 or the $99 level, for it to be a significant part of my monthly income. Whereas today, product highs, I mean yes, this is also thanks to growing growing my audience a bit and and some, you know, pretty good automation and and other promotions that I've done. But, you know, it consistently does, you know, between, like, 2 and 4 k in revenue a month. And and that's, you know, partly due to the price point that that I chose for it. I mean, when I when I was launching it, I thought about doing a lower priced or or offering a lower priced option.
Brian Casel:I think it's at a good level. And the other thing that I'd mentioned about charging more, aside from the obvious, you know, revenue benefits, it attracts more serious customers. And I've noticed this for years and years and years going back to my freelance web design days. You know, the the $20,000, $30,000 client project was a 100 times easier to deal with that with those personalities than the $800 websites, which is where where I started out. You know, the the cheap websites are the are the those owners are the ones who come back with tons of requests or problems or they're not happy or they want their logo to be bigger or whatever.
Brian Casel:Whereas the the higher paying clients are a little bit more experienced, they've they've worked with professionals before, they they've worked with services like this before. You know, I'm noticing this in audience ops. Like they're they're running businesses that have operating budgets and they're and they're growing businesses. They care about getting things done. They know what we need in order to be successful.
Brian Casel:They know what they need in order to be successful. It's just a much healthier working relationship when you're kinda dealing at a higher level like that.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. There are so many benefits beyond just the simple if you charge more, you will make more. It's it's a lot deeper than that. It's you will force you're forced to create something of higher value. You're forced to deal with companies that have more money.
Jordan Gal:It had all these other effects. Mean, if you know, and it's always whatever you're charging, you could charge more. So I could say, Brian, if things are working, why aren't you charging more? And for product ties, what would happen if you doubled the price? And right, you can come back and say, Jordan, you think you priced Kartokai starting off at $99 when a month and going up from there when your competitors are cheaper.
Jordan Gal:And the truth is, I think the business might be healthier if we only did it for $500 a month and up, and then we would be forced to find prospects in in that category who find a certain level of value out of it. It shouldn't just be when I start a new business, I am going to charge more. It should also be this continuous review of, are we charging enough? What what would happen if we charged more? And always challenging yourself.
Jordan Gal:Because the the first thing is, oh, we can't charge more because then we'll get less clients. And that's not necessarily the truth.
Brian Casel:That's that's correct. It's it's not necessarily the truth. And I have seen on multiple occasions that, you know, because the thing that that forces so many business owners to lower their prices because they're looking at competent their their competitors. We have to at least match our competitors' price or undercut it Yep. In some That's terrible.
Brian Casel:I I've never really believed in that at all. And I've going back to my freelance web design days, I literally remember clients telling me that they hired me because I was the highest bid that they saw.
Jordan Gal:Right. I I had a I had a demo last week, and the person was like, so this seems like way too cheap. Because because they they were used to paying $3.04, $5,000 a month for these email services. And, you know, I I felt like an idiot because clearly we we could we could have been charging a a lot more. And winning that one customer would be the same as winning 10 customers and $99 a month that I'm working all day and emailing and trying to talk to people and call people on the phone.
Jordan Gal:Exactly. Messes with you.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And and, you know, I think especially when you're in in the SaaS world, anywhere between, you know, 49 or or really anything like between between like 20 and $100 a month, at least in my mind as a consumer of of SaaS products, typically, I'm at at that level, I'm looking at features. Like, does this have all the features that I need? And the difference between a $39 a month product and a $69 a month product, in my mind, I'm I'm already thinking, like, well, I'm just looking for something in this range. You know, in this price range, and I'm looking for the right mix of features.
Brian Casel:Whichever one is gonna solve my problem the best. I'm not I'm not gonna shop around, you know, or make a decision on a 10 or $20 $20 difference in price. You know?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I had I had such a funny experience. I sent a tweet out about this. I I I had one of those notifications. Hey, Jordan.
Jordan Gal:These guys have made this much revenue but haven't launched. So I look at them like, oh, shit. These guys these guys are getting some good action. Great. Because we can see all the sales that are going through their site.
Jordan Gal:And I see that they're in New York a few blocks away from my first apartment. I'm like, I'm gonna I'm gonna call out, I'm gonna do my thing, I'll make a connection, the whole thing. I called them up. The guy is so awkward. It was an argument.
Jordan Gal:It was more of an argument than is normally the case for this type of a phone call. It was just about the price. And he was he was pissed, man. He was like, you guys
Brian Casel:Was this your tweet that I saw yesterday?
Jordan Gal:Yes. Exactly right. Because you guys are just way too expensive. We used to do this with another service and they built it all themselves. I'm like, you guys are you guys built the tech.
Jordan Gal:And it's like, but I have no choice but to use you guys because you're the only one that has the integration with this platform. I'm like, that's fucking worth something. Anyway, at at some point, the line came out of his mouth that I tweeted. He was like, you guys are just too expensive. It's like you're trying to do value based pricing.
Jordan Gal:And I was like, what else do you want me to price on? He's like, just just, you know, just like a a platform that we can do whatever we want with. I'm like, dude, you and I are it's not gonna work out. I was like, everything I try to do is to be value based pricing and you're looking at it as like a a, you know, a bad thing to do. So it was it was one of these things where like, look, you're going to get some pushback and you you you I basically told the team about it and I said, now that I've told you about it, we are going to completely ignore this experience.
Jordan Gal:We this is the wrong target customer. This is this is advice from someone that we do not want to work with, and therefore we are going not ignore it. We're gonna have a nice little chuckle at it, and we're gonna move on and and not listen to it at all.
Brian Casel:You know, that objection over price, I've heard it so many times in in all all of my past businesses. You know, the the reaction that I always have or or sometimes sometimes say in a nice way is like, you know, we have other clients who pay this amount, and they see the value in it. If I mean, guess you don't see the value in it or or it's not gonna solve the problem for you. But like, you know, when when their objection is just, look, I have the problem, I want the solution, I just wanna pay less for it. It's like, well, you know, I don't walk into a restaurant and ask for a free meal.
Brian Casel:Know? Like, I mean, it's either you're not experiencing the problem as painfully enough as our other clients are, and then in that case, then you're probably not a target customer for us or you just want some kind of special treatment and that's not what most businesses do. It's pretty simple.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I agree. The difficult part is what to learn from it and what to ignore. But one way or another, the answer shouldn't be lower your prices. The answer should be, maybe I need to find different type of prospect, maybe I need to add different types of value, maybe I need to position it differently, but the answer is not lower your prices.
Jordan Gal:Alright. Cool, man. So I I have I have I have one more. I have one more. I think this is my favorite one.
Jordan Gal:My next my next $80.20 tip is cheating. Cheating as much as you can in any way you possibly can. So I guess it requires a touch of clarification. I don't mean doing things unethically or illegally. I just mean whatever fucking advantage you have over anyone else, you take it with a reckless abandon.
Jordan Gal:You go after it. So example, Rob Walling. My man is is an investor in Cart Hook. He's a friend and he's an investor and that is a resource that my competitors don't have. I'm going to use the shit out of that resource as much as I can.
Jordan Gal:Right? So I had a conversation with Rob the other day about, hey, you guys have a million integrations and you've done well with integration marketing. Tell me your process. Tell me how to think through it. So I mean Ben are on the phone, we're writing notes down.
Jordan Gal:How do you do integrations? How do you time it? How do you think through them? How do you determine which ones to do and which ones not to do? How do you make the most out of the integration while you can So this is cheating.
Jordan Gal:This is an advantage that other people don't have, especially competitors that I'm an idiot not to use. And everyone has these little advantages, whether it's a mentor, whether it's an investor, a friend, a contact, maybe you have bigger balls than other people and are willing to call anybody, just whatever you have at your disposal. Right? Another example, I had a conversation with a a giant national franchise yesterday that one of our other investors introduced us to their digital marketing company. What what is that, like, unfair?
Jordan Gal:I mean, your competitors are doing this anyway. Your your your VC funded competitors are using their VCs and their VCs are using their connections in any way possible. Have you ever wondered how some of these companies get off the ground so ridiculously fast and get to a 100 k month in revenue in three months. A lot of it is because of this stuff. And, you know, most of the people listening to this are not in the valley and don't have big VCs behind them that connect them with big companies and get them in on big contracts right away.
Jordan Gal:But we do have these little things at our disposal and I think we should you know, it's like video games, man. You gotta whatever cheat codes you can get, this is this this is the ultimate game we're in the middle of. Any cheat codes that you can use, man, you should use them.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Look. Because it it's you're you're in a race against time. When you're starting something up, especially when you're bootstrapping, you are in a race against time to to make this thing viable. So you have to do and and use whatever special advantage that you have.
Brian Casel:Maybe that's even just insight of just being in in a certain, a certain industry. And you know a certain insight into that industry that most people don't know. You know? The thing that comes to mind is, I I hear this a lot, people in in from in, like, emails or conversations and whatnot, where it's like, you know, I have this idea for a product, but somebody else has already done it. Or or one or two other other people have already done it.
Brian Casel:It it wouldn't be, you know, the a one of a kind unique product. And I used to to suffer from the same misconception years ago, where I thought, I have to come up with something totally original. No. You don't. And I'm not saying go out there and find a a product to completely rip off and copy, but I'm saying, you know, whatever idea that you already have related to some area of expertise that you already have, or some industry that you're already in, or or a group of people that you know you have a connection to and you can reach and sell to, just because there are other competitors selling pretty much the same thing, does not mean that you should not start your your own thing in that space, and even do the same product, but do it in in your own way or or focus on a certain aspect of it.
Brian Casel:You have to take whatever the the most obvious, approach is to you and and, you know, forget everything else.
Jordan Gal:And then use every advantage you can to to to get it off the ground and get it moving faster. Alright, Brian. What's the last one? This is the last piece of business that I'm gonna think about before I go have a few beers and eat eat some turkey tomorrow. So bring us home, baby.
Jordan Gal:Bring us home.
Brian Casel:Well, actually, I had I had two more. I'm gonna do the first one super quick because we did a whole episode about it, I think, a couple weeks ago, and that's just being in a mastermind group. That I I've if I look back on the last couple years, the years that I've been in a Mastermind group, which have been about the last two and a half years or so, it's just night and day in terms of staying accountable and sharing ideas with with groups of people. I guess this also kind of, relates to just going out to conferences and doing meet ups and and meeting people in person and developing these relationships with people. For years, I kinda worked in my own bubble alone on my own stuff.
Brian Casel:And talking to people, especially on a weekly basis with with with my group has been super super helpful and staying accountable. But I'm not gonna spend too much time on that, because we did a whole episode about that last a couple weeks ago. But the last eighty twenty tip that I have here is focusing on one big initiative at a time. And, you know, I'm definitely learning this year that just being involved in one main business and not, like, three or four is night and day difference. I mean, the last couple of years I've I've taken on, I've gotten involved in so many different little projects that were unrelated to one another, that it it really pulled my time and my focus in in many different directions.
Brian Casel:Now, I mean, today, I'm I'm still doing different things. For for example, I'm running Audience Ops. That's kind of like my full time job. But I also work on the productized course. I also blog on on my on castrannow.com.
Brian Casel:You and I do this podcast, which is kind of a separate property. And so these are all different things. Right? Putting this podcast aside, which is really just a weekly call that you and I are probably gonna have anyway, whether we're recording or not
Jordan Gal:Yep.
Brian Casel:I treat these things as separate phases, initiatives. For example, I said, that this month of December, my focus is working on Productize. I'm it it finally, I'm gonna dedicate this month to updating the course and and and getting all this stuff out the door in that course. And I'm not gonna work on new stuff in Audience Ops. I mean, Audience Ops is running, but I'm not gonna work on new stuff there.
Brian Casel:It's not no new initiatives are happening in the month of December because I'm working on on Productize this month. You know, so and and, you know, the two months before that, when I was in Asheville, you know, I was I was all about working on sales and marketing. Like, that was the big initiative. That's my number one goal. So that's what defines my weekly tasks.
Brian Casel:Everything else is kind of just in maintenance mode. So just really having these, like, one big long term focus. And you can talk about, like, alright, you can, like, batch up your day and and do all these time hacks and time block this and time block that, and then you can multitask and do all these different things. No. You can't.
Brian Casel:It First of all, the, you know, hours of the day do not work like that. And second of all, the more important thing is your mind space. The the focus. What are you thinking about when you're not working? You know, trying to trying to marinate on the problems that you're trying to solve.
Brian Casel:It all has to be focused in one direction in in one period of time. So that's that's made a huge impact for me and and it's it's co before I really learned this lesson, it caused entire years of my business to kind of go to shit or just really stagnate. And this year, I feel like, is is the first year that things are starting to really look up be because I'm starting to find that that focus.
Brennan Dunn:Nice. And that's it.
Jordan Gal:I I agree with it and and struggle with it every day. Yeah, dude. I'm I'm still in the time blocking thing, but I think you it's funny that in in your head, I break out my day, but in my head, I have one thing that's kind of dominating. Right? It's like, I wanna get this particular project done by the end of the week.
Jordan Gal:And then everything else is oriented toward that. So even if I break out my day, I'm, like, annoyed at everything else I'm doing. Like, there's just I just need to get this out of the way so I can go back to that. Yep. Not not an easy thing to do.
Brian Casel:And a lot of different shit comes up. Like, all of us, we we knew stuff is flying at us and trying to tear tear a couple hours of your time here and tear off a couple hours of your time there to deal with some fire or or even like new feature ideas or new whatever that, like, oh, yeah. I should I should try let me let me see if I can bang that out in like an hour. You know. But then, I have to kinda pull myself back and say, wait a minute.
Brian Casel:Is this helping is this gonna contribute to getting to that goal that I set for this month or this quarter? You know. It's this is something that I could push off until next quarter. So, you know, kinda separating that planning from execution idea, setting aside day one of of every month or day one of every quarter, what are the big top goals, and what am I not working on, what's gonna get pushed off, that's it it that's made a huge difference for me.
Jordan Gal:Nice, dude. Well, look, I I I think I like this episode. I think I might go back to it every once in a while myself. I I hope other people found it kinda useful to hear. We'd I'd love to hear what other people are doing.
Jordan Gal:Shit. Let's let's get this going in two directions here instead of just us giving away what what we're doing.
Brian Casel:So For those of you who who stuck around this long, yeah, I definitely wanna hear from you guys. And on Twitter, send us an email, send us whatever. You know? And and as always, I mean, we're gonna cover some questions. And if you've businesses or websites that you want us to look over and talk about on the show, just, you know, send them our way.
Brian Casel:We'll do it.
Jordan Gal:Cool, man. Good stuff, Brian.
Brian Casel:Alright, Jordan. Enjoy your time down in down in Miami there.
Jordan Gal:Thanks, man. Be good.
Brian Casel:Alright. See you.
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