[97] Problems to Solve in 2016
Hey. This is Bootstrapped Web episode 97. Good to be back, Jordan.
Jordan Gal:Very nice to be back with you, Brian.
Brian Casel:And here we are, the very last day of '20 '15.
Jordan Gal:New Year's Eve. Going out to the club?
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. Right. New Year this this is how I'm sort spending my New Year's Eve, with you on a podcast and then hanging out in this house, probably watching Netflix or something. Yep.
Brian Casel:Yep. I think
Jordan Gal:that's the that's the right move, man. It's it's amateur night out there. I'm in Miami. I mean, you wanna talk about amateur night? Jesus.
Jordan Gal:But, hey, we are drinking.
Brian Casel:That's right.
Jordan Gal:Picking a four you know, 40 of OE right now. No. Just kidding. Nice. It's a 22.
Jordan Gal:It's a 22 of rolling. No. Just kidding. It's a six pack of Zima. No.
Jordan Gal:I'm just kidding.
Brian Casel:Zima. Oh, wow. Bringing back memories here. I think this
Jordan Gal:is a good tradition. I mean, we we do the podcast late in the afternoon. We should have a beer.
Brian Casel:Absolutely. I mean, we should we should make it like like a weekly routine here.
Jordan Gal:I totally agree. What what have we been thinking?
Brian Casel:I know.
Jordan Gal:New New Year's resolution, have a beer at every podcast.
Brian Casel:There you go. Boom.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Yeah. Do you listen to Men in Blazers by any chance? It's a, like, a soccer podcast.
Brian Casel:No. I don't.
Jordan Gal:It's very good. They they have the tradition they they crack a Guinness and like, look look look look look look look like port on on the mic.
Brian Casel:Let's get you
Jordan Gal:in the mood.
Brian Casel:That that sounds appropriate. Yeah. It is appropriate. Cool. I guess this will be kinda like a like an update episode, you know, like like we normally do every two weeks.
Brian Casel:I mean, we don't have a whole lot of to report on since, last week we kinda covered our upcoming goals and a recap for 2015. I I thought I would kinda take this opportunity to do a little bit of a follow-up to last week's episode on my 2016 goals because, you know, like I said, I they're not super solid and I'm kind of acknowledging that, look, plans change and and I and I don't wanna, you know, guarantee or or make some prediction that I will do x, y, and z in the next year. I do have a list of things that I plan to work on, but I'm gonna kinda take it as we go. But I I did wanna follow-up and focus a little bit more on some problems, or maybe a better word would be challenges that I have not yet figured out and that I'm kind of facing right now in in in this moment. And these are things that I want to somehow solve between now and the 2016.
Brian Casel:You know, specifically in my in the audience ops business. Alright.
Jordan Gal:So I wanna hear some some specifics.
Brian Casel:Yeah. So so, you know, I'm I'm gonna get right into those in just a minute. The only the only other update that I have is, you know, like I've been talking about in December, I've been really focused on updating the Productize course. Well, that is now officially launched. Like, the second edition of the Productize course is out.
Brian Casel:I mean, it's it's the same course, but I did add a a number of new lessons, about six all new lessons, seven new case study interviews, and we've got a couple more coming coming out pretty soon. So that's all out. It it it's like kind of updated content. It's a lot based on what I've been doing with Audience Ops and and other things that I've learned from from some of the students who've gone through the course. And to kind of, you know, kick things off with the second edition of Productize, I I'm holding a a new workshop.
Brian Casel:This is, you know, all new material that and and kind of talking about a different angle of Productize services and how to grow them beyond just the initial launch. So I'll be doing a workshop on that happening on January 14. So that, you know, depending on when you're listening to this, 01/14/2016. If you happen to be listening to this, you know, in real time, then you can register for that over at castjam.com/workshop. And I'd love to, you know, hang out with you guys and teach the lesson, but then I always do, you know, a pretty long live q and a session, which is always fun.
Brian Casel:So, so yeah, that's happening.
Jordan Gal:Very nice, man. I'm I'm interested in that. I wanna I wanna hear more about that and there's there's nothing like performance to build credibility. Right? Audience ops is growing and now I'm I'm I know I personally am naturally, I'm just more interested in what you wanna say about about this topic.
Jordan Gal:Right? It's like you could see how they they start to they start to come together.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I mean, I've been thinking a lot lately about I I actually just wrote a a big article about this. Like the bigger picture beyond the productized service and how that how you can leverage the productized service to kinda snowball into bigger and better things. And it kinda better positions you to launch other products, you know, related products to the same market, and kind of do it profitably the whole way through. I I just did a whole article on that.
Brian Casel:And, so that'll be kind of a theme of of this workshop. But to tell you the truth, I've only kind of outlined the the the plan for the slides. I I usually, kinda finish them the the night before. So
Jordan Gal:Yeah. That's always how it goes. Yeah. I love having things on the schedule like that. I have a webinar coming up on January 21, like a joint webinar with PureChat, the the live chat software.
Jordan Gal:And I just love that that is on the calendar because I have no stress about whether or not I'm gonna do it. It's I'm obviously gonna do it. So I I like having that. Alright. Cool, man.
Jordan Gal:Well, us give us some some details about what what the problems that you want. You're right that you're looking to 2,016 and saying, don't know what the hell I'm doing in these areas and and over the next year, I'm going to to solve those, you know, fix them, figure them out, deal with them.
Brian Casel:Yeah. So the first one on this list is hiring full time employees. And and I I've had a, you know, growing team for quite some time. As of today, Audience Ops has 13 people working on it, you know, with varying degrees of of part time work, basically. Some of them are, you know, getting up to close to to full time hours.
Brian Casel:But basically, it's it's a large team and it's growing. And the more we do sales and bring on the customer base, which is also growing pretty pretty rapidly at this point, we need to keep the capacity up so that I can keep pushing on sales. But I I don't wanna, you know, continue to grow the the freelance team for forever. I I wanna, you know, especially some of some of the the people on the team who, you know, really make sense and and have been I mean, everyone everyone on the team has been awesome. But a few of them I'll be looking to kind of convert over to full time.
Brian Casel:This is kind of something that's on the table right now, you know, in the next couple of weeks, like 2016. And really, the the challenge that I'm having with it is just figuring out, like, the formula for if that makes sense. Like, the formula for hiring a full time employee, and I wanna figure out, okay, if I have x number of leads in the pipeline, I know that they convert at this percentage, then every time I reach this point, I know that I'll I'll need to bring on another full time employee, specifically writers. But I but we also have, like, copy editors and assistants and, graphic designer. And so I just gotta make sure that all pieces of our production line are covered.
Brian Casel:And just like the logistics of that, like, I've I've been building remote teams for for many years now and across, you know, many businesses, but I've never really crossed that line over into, like, you know, w two, you know, full full time employment packages and and all that. I'm kind of trying to navigate my way through all that right now and and figuring out the next steps. It's a little for me, it's it's it's kind of, know, new territory. So
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I I think it's one of the sad realities of of entrepreneurship in The US that hiring someone full time is like the last thing you want to do. Like you you only do it if you absolutely have to because it's such a pain and it's also it's also very expensive.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. It it is. It's a
Jordan Gal:tough tough situation.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And it's also as much as you want the team to commit to audience ops, I'm also committing to certain people And I wanna make sure that that I I just maybe I'm putting weight way more weight on on these kind of decisions than I'm than I should be, and I should just kinda move faster than I am. I feel like it's one of those things that that I've been kinda a little bit too slow to act on. But but, you know, it's just something that that's on my mind. So that, you know, specifically, I by the 2016, sooner than that, really in the first quarter or two, I wanna just feel good about like, that I've figured this out and I know the formula, I know the process, and we can just go forward from there.
Brian Casel:The next one, yeah, I mean, kinda related is to remove myself from sales. Up until now, I'm still I'm still the the sole salesperson doing all the sales calls. And I I am happy that we've crossed the threshold of of the leads who are not only coming from, like, my personal network or, you know, the email list. We still get some leads from from that network, but we've been doing cold email outreach. We've been getting referrals, you know, from and and these leads are coming are they who don't know me, never really met me.
Brian Casel:So those are good, and and they are converting into customers as as well. So that's that's good as well. But I'm still the one on the calls with them. And so I I do need to remove myself from that. As much as I I enjoy doing sales calls, especially when I'm talking to other, you know, software entrepreneurs, like people that I like to talk to anyway, I'm starting to feel the the pressure of, wow, my calendar is just filled up.
Brian Casel:I've got too many appointments. And and I'm getting back to that rut of my work is too tied to my time. And anytime I feel that pressure of, like, I'm I'm a slave to my calendar, or or these deadlines or these appointments, I'm not I'm not in the right mindset. I I need to be focused on the bigger picture and building things and solving bigger problems. And I need to figure out hiring salespeople and training salespeople and and getting that process in order.
Brian Casel:I mean, I've I did outsource and delegate the sales role in my previous company, Restaurant Engine, but I think this time it'll be a little bit different. You know, we're selling a very different type of product to different people. So so that's another thing that I'm that I'm looking at.
Jordan Gal:Different price point which allows you to pay a good commission, right? You want someone good and hungry and motivated, you have enough cushion, you have enough margin to do that. Yeah. I think you're going about it in the right order, right? First thing is use your network, You've done that.
Jordan Gal:Obviously, you need to be doing the sales to close those deals. Then you need to prove before you hire a salesperson, you need to prove that you can close total strangers. You've done that. I would push back and just say, can you be more efficient? Can the only thing you think about and worry about is just doing the sales call?
Brian Casel:Well, that's actually where it's at now. Like I I I have made it super efficient where like literally, it's it's on my calendar, You know, the the lead came in. I I have, like, a canned response that says, hey. Thanks for getting in touch. Here's my Calendly link.
Brian Casel:They booked the time. Then I show up for the sales call. Takes anywhere from, like, ten to thirty minutes. And then from there, I've I think I talked about it on this previous episode. I shoot off an email to my VA.
Brian Casel:He prepares our standard proposal and sends me back that link. I shoot it over to the client. They sign up, hopefully. And then from there, it gets passed on to my project manager and she, you know, does all the onboarding and it's all taken care of from there. Just having one or two calls scheduled in my calendar in a in a day, I have to like focus my whole day around that.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Definitely. Definitely throws up your whole day. Nothing throws off, but it changes your whole day. Even even having a thirty minute call scheduled at two in the afternoon changes your entire
Pippin Williamson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:It changes like what my lunch plan is and it changes you know, the the big project that I'm gonna work on later, know.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I mean, would be happy if I were doing two of those a day, five days a week but but it depends. The truth is that the the fact that you don't enjoy enough to be like, yes, give me more, give me five a day. The fact that you don't enjoy that leads me to think that maybe there's someone out there that would just freaking eat that up. That would just love doing that all day and would be good at it because of how much they enjoy it.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. So it's I guess then what's the next step kind of documenting the sales process, giving them a try. I mean, I I know when when we did it, we had we had mixed results. When I backed out of sales, things went faster, but then the relationship with the customer wasn't as strong, so fewer were translating into paid customers after the trial. So so it was it was mixed.
Jordan Gal:So I jumped back in to kinda make sure like, hey, no, I'm not taking any chances. Yeah. But I'm with you. I feel like for your stage, does it does make sense to slowly back out. Look, if you get a big customer that you're like, this really might be a big deal for the company, you can do that one.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Right. Then I'll I'll take kind of that that's probably how I would phase it in. I mean, again, like, this is I'm I'm listening to this as a problem because I have not figured out the those next steps yet, and that's something that I'll need to work on in the in the next few months.
Jordan Gal:Cool. That's a good good good thing to work on.
Brian Casel:Yeah. The next one that I had here is building up the software side of the audience ops business. And so we did launch our first of several WordPress plugins, the content upgrades plugin. And that had a I was pretty happy with the initial launch of it. Had a lot of interest and, you know, it it made a bunch of sales during that week, during the launch week.
Brian Casel:Couple sales have trickled in since then, but I don't have a a running like, a fully functional marketing funnel for for that product. I I actually did put things in place. I'm just not driving any traffic to that funnel. And so we've got plant like, the second plugin, which is like a landing pages plugin. My developer's already working on that.
Brian Casel:That's getting close to being, like, beta testing ready. So that'll be coming in, like, January or February probably more like February. And then we've got a third one coming down the the pipeline. And so just I I like, by the 2016, I want the software tools to be I don't think that they definitely won't come close to to reaching, like, the revenue level of the done for you service. But I want them to be a significant chunk of what we do to to really justify putting more resources into it.
Brian Casel:Because obviously, you know, software, is is definitely more scalable than than the the productized service. Not like, we are scaling up the productized service side of it, but I I think the long term, twenty six sixteen and even, you know, beyond that, 2017, we'll be shifting more into the the more scalable profitable, you know, software type, tools. So so I guess the problem or the thing that I'm trying to figure out is how to build the the marketing funnels that'll that'll result in, you know, repeat in, like, predictable sales for that and how to fit that within the the the product line, you know, where you've got the tools and you've got the done for you service. And, you know, we're marketing a few different products. And I'm also looking at doing a a book or a course or something, so that's gotta fit in as well.
Brian Casel:It's all coming from the same brand and it's all about content marketing, but I don't wanna kind of dilute the whole marketing funnel if that makes sense.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. That's that's a tricky problem. It sounds like a lead fuse type problem like our buddy Justin. It started off, it done for you and then went to software and now wants to shift and it's kind of difficult to keep the messaging straight and the pricing right and what to focus on. It's tricky.
Jordan Gal:It's the thing I find funny is that the no matter who you talk to, the grass is always greener. You you talk to a software, you know, someone running software and product service sounds so good, sounds so easy, oh my god, it's so much better, the growth can be so much faster. And then you talk to someone running a service and they're like, software is where it's at, you can scale so much easier. It's it's definitely one of those situations of grass looks greener because you're not in it and, you know, swimming around in in the problems and limitations of that business model.
Brian Casel:Yeah. It's it's it's very true. The grass is always greener when you when you look at, you know, what other people are are working on for sure. You know? But I do like that we're that that at least I'm very focused on this one brand.
Brian Casel:The like, the Audience Ops brand and, like, whatever products whatever new products that that come up for me in 2016, it's all gonna be coming from Audience Ops. And it has to serve that audience, you know, and that and and it makes sense, you know, relating to content marketing and helping software companies do content marketing better, whether it's done for you service, whether it's the tools, whether it's the education, that's that's the big picture goal. I I just need to figure out how to, I don't know, get them all connected in a in a seamless way.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I I like that. I think that's a healthy way to look at it. It's one of the things we've been talking about internally is the goal of a company, the point of a company is to make money for its shareholders, its owners. It's not about being purely one type of company or business model.
Jordan Gal:You know, we we have been frustrated lately at, look, we're growing, but it's just not enough money. You just you know, your ambitions is is to make a lot of money. If one business model, if software is good but slow, there's no reason to say we're a software company, we only sell software. Right? You can say, you know what, we could do a productized service too or we could offer consulting or we could offer a course, we could offer something at at a different price point at a different business model and make more money in the short term, even if that's not the 100% focus of the company.
Jordan Gal:So while it might be a little dangerous to split the focus, it might it might also make sense.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I mean Yeah. I the way I I like to look at it is probably along the same lines, but I I like to think of it as the the business, like the company that you're that you're starting or that you're trying to grow or that you're, you know, just sustaining is it's all built on a on a mission. And that mission is solving a a problem. And there are several ways of solving the same problem.
Brian Casel:You know?
Jordan Gal:Yep. I think that's on the money.
Brian Casel:And and like in in my case with audience ops, I I define that and and to go along with the problem, it's also who. Who are you who are you solving that problem for? So in my Specific case
Jordan Gal:problem for specific market.
Brian Casel:Right. Like, I'm focused on, you know, SaaS software companies, and specifically the founders of those companies. And the problem that I'm solving for them is to help them implement and and use content marketing to grow their audience and grow their customer base and also free them up to focus on what they need to do, which is working on their on their product. We start by solving that problem by with a done for you service. We're just gonna outright solve that problem for you.
Brian Casel:But there are other software companies who prefer not to to not to have a done for you outsourced service and do it themselves. But we're still solving that that same problem of helping them do content marketing better by teaching them how to do it or giving them the tools to do it. So, that's that's how I I see it. You know?
Jordan Gal:I like it. Yeah. It makes me think of, Nathan Barry teaching how to use email and then coming out with ConvertKit. Makes me think of Laura Roeder coming you know, talking about how to do and selling a course and consulting on how to do social media the right way and then coming out with a piece of software that that does it along those same lines. Yep.
Jordan Gal:It makes sense. Makes me think of Russell Brunson. Right? Big consulting customers and then click funnels as a software to go along with the way he would teach you to do it anyway. And and now the interesting thing is once once you have the two in place, right, my my understanding that the guy Russell Brunson's very open in podcasts, now he's actually using the software to upsell into his consulting instead of the other way around.
Jordan Gal:So they're selling, hey, get a software package but if you pay more, you'll get the software plus the consulting also.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Exactly. I I I think there's so so much potential for for that sort of thing. I mean, really, and and and and all sorts of of SaaS and and, you know, all all sorts of different software products and even you know, I I don't think that it's just one track to solve one problem. So the last thing that I had on on the list here was just working less.
Brian Casel:I think I've talked about this before. And I I guess it's a annual goal that I continue to say, and I and I still set it as an annual goal, so I guess I didn't solve it yet. You know, I think to actually, to a certain extent, in 2015, when I was at home in in Connecticut before the traveling stuff, even with the traveling stuff, there are definitely days where I where I was not working. I was either, you know, when my wife was working part time, I was home with the baby. Now that we're traveling, we've we've got days where I'm just on the road not working, but the but the business is running.
Brian Casel:So that's I guess that's kind of a win, but I still feel like I'm I'm still pressured to get a whole bunch of work done on the days where I'm not traveling. Or the days when my wife was not working, so I don't have to watch the the baby. So it's like, okay. I got a work day. I can I can get a whole bunch done?
Brian Casel:I I better get a whole lot done. I I just I still feel that that kind of pressure. So I think, by the time we get back to Connecticut, we'll be settling down back back there in, in March 2016. So that'll be a goal. Not really sure what the actionable steps are to achieving that goal.
Jordan Gal:Yep. Yep. I
Brian Casel:You know, I I think it's just, I mean, like, the thing that's kind
Jordan Gal:actionable steps. It's not like be more successful and then work less. It's it really requires changing, you know, the way the way the whole thing's structured. It's not that I dismiss it. It's that I don't care about working less, I just want more quality time, you know, in in the personal life because a lot of times working is it's not that it's fun, it's it's it'll be not bad.
Jordan Gal:It's not like this horrible thing. Oh, I gotta go to work now. Right? That's the whole beauty of of what we do. You don't have to be miserable with the boss and like be pissed about going to work.
Brian Casel:I think part of it is for me, it's it's a lot of it is like the addiction of moving so fast in in the work and making making progress, making progress, you know, shipping this, shipping this little project, like doing that. And I know that when I get to the end of this month, I wanna look back on it and say, I've done x x x and and y. And, like you know, and then shifting over to watching Sesame Street with my two year old and traveling and just checking out a new place and and just kinda hanging out or playing music or, you know, playing sports or running. Like, it's a different pace. I I I still love I I love doing those things and the time that is very that is quality time and it's and I need more of it, but it's hard to kinda go, you know, flip this the switch back and forth in in in the pace.
Brian Casel:And Yeah.
Jordan Gal:And have a clear mind, like, sitting and reading a book with your daughter and and you're not thinking about anything else.
Brian Casel:Right. Right.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. It's tricky. I I I just I don't know if that's even you maybe know, that's not in the cards for us for a while. Maybe this is the stage of life where you know, you like look back at like when you were a kid and you know, your your parents were thinking the same thing. They were worried and had all these different things that they had in their mind and they shut up about it because that's the right thing to do.
Jordan Gal:It's kinda what we're doing.
Brian Casel:Mean, the month of the month of May, either April or May is when our second daughter is is expected. And, you know, I started jotting down, like, plans for the year and and what I'm gonna what the big projects that I'll focus on each month are gonna be. And and I I would love to just say May is nothing. May you know, that'll be like the having the newborn at home that month. Obviously, it doesn't last just one month.
Brian Casel:It's it's gonna be the whole year. But, like but, you know, in the very first few weeks, it's like you're just trying to survive. So especially especially for my wife. And so it's like I gotta be around and and not preoccupied with other crap. And I wanna hold myself to that.
Brian Casel:And
Jordan Gal:Good. Well, I I hope you can do that. I I my no. Seriously, I I genuinely hope, you know, free that you you you guys can do that because that that's that's that's ideal. My daughter is due on March 22 and I am scheduled to be at a conference in San Francisco on March 22.
Jordan Gal:So and and we're we have all these plans for March. March is actually a crazy month, so I'm I'm not gonna get that when when
Brian Casel:you're Well, at the same time, we're gonna be, you know, shopping for for a house and probably doing renovations and all this all our other crap. So it's it's gonna be like a a hurricane of of things going on. I think that's just the Yeah.
Jordan Gal:In some ways, it's it's not that I wanna work less, it's that I wanna do less work. I don't know if that makes any sense. It's like instead of the the 20 item to do list, it's like, no. I'm just gonna do these three things because this is what works. This is what adds customers.
Jordan Gal:This is what makes money and I'm just gonna do that. And other people are gonna handle the other stuff and we're gonna ignore the other things. I think that sounds realistic and good to focus on fewer things as as as you find what works.
Brian Casel:And I think it's just some it's part of it is just to somehow keep reminding myself that not everything that you're doing like, you don't have to be doing all the things that you're doing. Whether it's checking email 10 times a day or responding to people within an hour when you could respond to them twelve hours later, and it's not. Like, that's still professional, you know? You're or doing a little bit of work on a weekend when it could wait until Monday. Like, especially, like, on weeks when I'm when I'm traveling.
Brian Casel:I think I've heard, you know, Brett Palumbo talk about this about his traveling. It's like, you know, the business still grows and he's working, you know, like, half the time that he used to work. So he's doing less things and the business is still growing. And it just goes to show that so much of what we do is kinda just spinning our wheels a little bit.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Agree on that.
Brian Casel:Cool. So well, that's that's all I had for my my updates and thoughts.
Jordan Gal:Cool, man. I I don't even know how much I wanna add. I think it's just an interesting conversation just to talk about the problems you're looking at. On on our end, the I will say the surprising thing over the past two weeks, I thought the December was going to be okay, no one really cares about anything right now. It's quiet time.
Jordan Gal:I'm gonna get all this stuff done while I have some peace and quiet. And so far the opposite has happened. The lack of momentum and lack of activity has driven me out of my mind And I've I've turned into like, I'm I'm unhappy. The past week, have been so like agitated, impatient, frustrated for no reason. December was the best month of the business ever.
Jordan Gal:Growth, revenue that that, hey, stick it to the IRS, switch to annual billing email was fantastically successful. The the most revenue by nearly double of of any other month, the most number of paid customers added, and I am so pissed off and unhappy. It's it's so weird and I think it's I think it's a momentum thing. It's just nothing's happening, nothing's moving forward and all I'm doing all day is thinking and getting into my head instead of like actually accomplishing things and reacting to people and doing sales and getting excited and so instead of like, oh, these next two weeks are gonna be amazing, I can't wait to stop being bothered by like the insanity of like support requests and new customers and all that, and and just the complete opposite has happened. It's like as nothing is moving and nothing is happening, I am like
Brian Casel:But things are
Jordan Gal:lost my mind.
Brian Casel:Well, I guess just to push back on that, I mean, are moving. You you like, December broke records for for adding customers and revenue. Right? And
Jordan Gal:Oh oh, yeah. Objectively. Yes. You're a 100% right. But but, you know, the the the internal the emotions are not really dictated by logic.
Brian Casel:Do you think it's you know, because you you and I have talked on on this podcast about so you're you're a three person team now, like, how you kinda deli like, separate the roles or the areas of who owns what in in terms of the roles. And you're kind of in this sales marketing big picture kind of role. But do you think there's a little bit too much of that, like, high level stuff and you need, like, a weekly routine of, like, this is what you're responsible for in terms of just, like, actionable things? And and that you can look at every week and say, okay. These things got done and that's how it added to the business.
Jordan Gal:Yes. Yes. The the yeah. That's the the very strange thing is because there's been so much time I I end up getting into my own head, and then I say to myself, no, it's it's good to think. It's good to not just take action and respond to people and and do things.
Jordan Gal:It's good to think bigger picture. Unfortunately, what that has led to is being dissatisfied. It's just, hey, man. Why are things not going faster? Why is there not a zero at the end of this number?
Jordan Gal:And
Brian Casel:content, for example. I mean, content is something that like not that you're it's not that you have, like, spare time that you can devote to this or anything.
Pippin Williamson:Like, I I know that
Brian Casel:you're super busy, but but if you just restructure your time, like, whatever whatever time you're spending, you gotta look at the things that you're doing and and say, okay. These things are are not adding a whole lot of value. Like, you're already doing the Cart Hook Podcast. What if you did, a ten minute, you know, video tip to optimize your ecommerce site, and it's just you putting on the screencast once a week. And you know, you're you're producing content that's adding value, that's adding traffic, know.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I I agree with you a million percent. I I think about that and I say there's I have so much to offer on that end where and and here's the crazy thing. The second I start producing something, the second I start, you know, I start writing a new email in in an email course. The second I start like, you know, designing something and sending it over to to Ben and Rock to say, hey, this is what I'm thinking about this feature.
Jordan Gal:I get into like this bliss. It's I love it. It makes me so happy. But but getting into it and convincing myself like, oh, it's time to stop doing all this other stuff and do this for an hour it's so difficult. And then once I do it, I'm like, my god, why do I do this all day?
Jordan Gal:It feels so good. It's a very strange like internal internal battle. I'm sure a lot of people experience it.
Brian Casel:I get into the same thing my myself. Like right now, the way that I look at that, it is sometimes I get a little bit I still get a little bit too caught up in emails with with my team, but also with with clients. And I mean, I love my clients. I'm not just saying that. I I really love this business, and I love the the market that we that we work with.
Brian Casel:But I have a project manager, and she's awesome. And and whenever I'm pulled in to answer questions, it's it's my fault for not giving her the tools necessary to to be able to take that off my plate. Or, like, when when questions are being escalated to me too often. To me, when I'm when I'm spending too many hours a week on that kind of stuff, I feel unproductive and I feel frustrated. But when I'm working on wireframes and giving my developer ideas to to build out our plug in products and our software, that's where I'm I feel most productive and engaged, and I'm having fun doing this.
Brian Casel:And that's why I want to also remove myself from from sales and, and and keep the team growing in a systematic way so that I can focus more of my time on that creative stuff. And the like, the writing, you know, doing a a book or a course. Like, I wanna get I wanna really sink days and months and hours into that kind of work and not get so hung up with calendar appointments and spending too much time in like help scout and email. I
Jordan Gal:hear you. I I think that that might be the single biggest difficulty for me in 2016. If I can figure that part out, the time management between tasks not tasks that don't matter, but tasks that don't produce new assets, new things, new yeah, I think assets is the only way to think about it, right? Whether it's content or process or email or something that affects acquisition. That's kind of internally what we've been talking about a lot is how do we make sure that almost all of our time is spent on things that affect customer acquisition.
Jordan Gal:Right? Like optimizing these little things on the back end to make sure of this or make sure of that. It doesn't make a difference on acquisition. And if it doesn't make a difference on acquisition, it's probably not the right thing to to focus on right now.
Brian Casel:Yep. Yep. Yep. Cool. Well, why don't we leave it there and we'll be back for another one next week.
Brian Casel:So I I think next week we're gonna start getting into some of these website or business teardowns, if you will. We've we've got a number of them, you know, sent to us on Twitter. So we'll, tackle a couple of those. That'll that'll be kind of fun, a different format for next episode. And if you guys have any any, you know, a website or business that you'd like us to kinda take a look at and talk about on the air, shoot it our way.
Jordan Gal:Cool. Sounds good.
Brian Casel:Alright.
Jordan Gal:Hey, Brian. Happy New Year.
Brian Casel:Hey. Happy New Year, buddy.
Jordan Gal:Later. Cool, man. Talk to you soon. Bye.
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