[106] Launch Updates, Goals for a New Hire & Optimal Work Environments
This is Bootstrap web episode one zero six. We're back at it. Jordan, how's it going?
Jordan Gal:Good, man. How are you doing?
Brian Casel:Doing good. Just sitting here, in our temporary Airbnb, trying to get some work done, sitting here on the couch, but, just another day at it.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Yeah. Same here. I I've had, a giddy day, just kinda smiley all day. So you gotta enjoy those instead of, you know, the the the stressful days.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Well, I think I had the opposite today. Today's one of those stressful days. So
Brennan Dunn:I had the opposite yesterday.
Jordan Gal:It makes you feel better.
Brian Casel:Well, let's get into it. Today's another updates episode. We've got a couple things going on.
Brennan Dunn:Just a couple of Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Update. We're both both working on launches. So you each give our perspective on on that.
Brian Casel:Yeah. So why don't we start with you? What's up on your end?
Jordan Gal:Okay. Sure. So before we get into the the the launch business, the main theme of my life right now is that we're expecting a baby any day. So it's gonna happen. So it's very, very exciting.
Jordan Gal:Think that's the cause for my giddiness. It's just kind of starting to focus on that. It's very,
Brian Casel:very exciting. So the due date is like this week,
Jordan Gal:The due date is in six days.
Brian Casel:Okay. Yep. So I mean, really, you're in that period of like, it could be any day now.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Any day, any minute. We've got the contingency plans, what happens at night, what happens during the day, who we're gonna drop off. Because now with two kids, it's like, you can't bring them to the hospital. You gotta deal with them Yeah.
Jordan Gal:We're out here in Portland, where our families aren't. Actually, that of course, but more exciting than anything else.
Brian Casel:That's funny. So we're about six weeks away from our due date, and that's funny you you mentioned that because we had not even thought that through at all with our with our two year old. Like, what are we gonna do with her? Yeah. Of too.
Brian Casel:I've got my my parents nearby, so it'll Right. Won't be a problem.
Nathan Barry:Yeah. So that's that's
Jordan Gal:the big thing. And besides that, I've been going to the gym, which is something I haven't done in maybe three years, yeah, or so. So pretty pretty bad. And I just joined a gym, and that feels good, man. I I I always knew that I was underestimating how big of an impact it would have, but it it feels awesome.
Jordan Gal:It's just more energy, just more positive outlook, less, you know, feeling of, like, bottled in.
Brian Casel:Yeah. It
Jordan Gal:got all around.
Brian Casel:I don't know if we talked about this on the on the podcast or not or if it was offline, but, like, so which, like, what kind of routine are you getting into? I'm I'm curious about that.
Jordan Gal:Sure. So I joined, like, a hippie Portland gym, where it's like you get to the website and it's like non intimidating, non competitive. So basically, just needed something where the discipline and motivation did not depend on me. So I joined like a like a group fitness where it's like maximum 10 people, one trainer, and the trainer basically just does like a circuit for an hour. Like, you do this on this station, this on this station, these exercises.
Jordan Gal:So you do a warm up, and then you go through the stations, and then when you get to the last station that the hour is up and you're done, you do a wind down. That's basically like no decision making. There are other people around, it feels a little competitive and it feels like good in that way, and then I don't actually have to know anything or study or I just go there and do what she tells me for now.
Brian Casel:You have like an appointment, like you you know, you're you're scheduled to go like
Jordan Gal:You do, which is I think is really good. It's not just like any day between this time and that time, you have to book it because it fills up because it's maximum 10 people.
Brian Casel:Yeah. That's good.
Jordan Gal:And then if if you cancel too late, you you pay anyway. So it's like, okay, Tuesdays and Thursdays from five to 6PM, that's when I go. It's I built love into my schedule. It's it's been awesome.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I've I've been I've been so unhealthy lately because, you know, between the travel and and everything. And so just this week, I started getting back into my running routine, which which feels pretty good. But I'm I'm looking to I'm not gonna join a gym, but I think I wanna get back into tennis. I used to play tennis when I was younger.
Brian Casel:And and that's one of those things, like, I I kinda miss the competition. I need some some exercise, you know. I I like to play, I I like to do athletic things, and I haven't really had that in my life in the last few years. So, you know, now that we're kinda settling down in in Orange, Connecticut, I'm looking at this, indoor tennis facility. And like, I'm what looking for, I don't even know if they offer this, but I hope that they do, where it's like, I'll just, you know, take a bunch of lessons, get kinda caught up on on the skills, and then I just wanna drop into some program where every single week, day of the week, I know that I have a match to play.
Brian Casel:Yeah. That's it. Like match me with a person, just I'm showing up on Thursday night, like, I just want that to be a set thing. So that, like you said, like, no decisions, just it's just on the calendar, it's happening, and you go play.
Jordan Gal:Right. Everyone knows it. You know it, your wife knows it. It's all built in and
Brennan Dunn:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Yeah. That that's that's been the only way that I've gone consistently in in a very long time.
Brennan Dunn:So I wish you luck with it.
Brian Casel:Very cool. So is that like the personal update? Just baby any day and
Jordan Gal:The the last thing on the personal front is I've got my standing desk set up in my in my office now, and what I find is standing up plus music instead instead of podcasts, I'm so much happier and so much more productive. So, like, on downtimes, I listen to podcasts. But when I actually wanna, like, work for a few hours in a row, I stand and put music on. And ideally, I just put the same song on.
Brian Casel:I've heard I've heard that works really well, the the song on repeat.
Jordan Gal:Just put it on repeat and and ideally with with no words. Otherwise, I end up, like, singing along and being like a rapper, which is, you know, not not good for productivity.
Brian Casel:Awesome. So let's let's dig into this for a minute. I don't think we've ever really talked about this. First of all, the standing desk. Because I'm I'm gonna be I'm designing my my new office in the new house pretty soon.
Brian Casel:I I am gonna go with the standing desk. So what kind did you get? How did how did you, like, get that all set up?
Jordan Gal:So the way I have it set up here, there's, like, a permanent desk that's like three sides that's built into the room. So I I gotta work with that. And so I I got just the thing that goes on top of your desk that makes it taller and you put your stuff on top of that. So I have
Brian Casel:Oh, okay. So it's not like an adjustable.
Jordan Gal:It's not adjustable, which is what I wish and what I crave for. Because sometimes you just wanna sit down. So what I have is I have my laptop, but the MacBook Air on the desk, and then I have a keyboard, speakers, monitor, and my mouse up on the actual standing desk. So whenever I want, I just sit down to the desk level and work on my laptop, and then I can stand up to be at the big
Brian Casel:screen, the big screen. That's how you do the two monitors, like one up and down. That's cool.
Jordan Gal:Yes. And I have this amazing dock. It's called landing zone. I was far away from the microphone. It's called landing zone.
Jordan Gal:And you just you hook everything up permanently to the landing zone dock, like your monitor, your speakers, your mouse, keyboard, everything. Then whenever you want, you just put your laptop on it, you click it into place, then it fires up on the big monitor. You never have to unplug anything. I could always take my laptop upstairs or coffee shop or co working very easily. Then when I when you come back to it, you don't have to set anything up.
Jordan Gal:It's already totally set up with my big speakers, monitor everything. You just click it into the landing zone dock and then
Brian Casel:Oh, I gotta check that
Brennan Dunn:out. Big screen.
Brian Casel:Awesome. So yeah. Mean, I think I'm gonna go with think I'm gonna go with, like, an adjustable standing desk, you know. But my my worry is that since it's adjustable and, like, you know, electronic and all that, I'm just gonna leave it in the sitting position. Alright.
Brian Casel:Like, what's like, I like yours because it it kind of forces you to, like, walk in and and get going standing up. So hopefully, I'll I'll keep it in the standing position.
Jordan Gal:But I've had to make some adjustments. Instead of wearing flip flops, I now have to wear sneakers.
Brian Casel:Okay.
Jordan Gal:Because I I was in flip flops for a few days standing, and that hurts after a while.
Brian Casel:I'm sure.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. So now I wear sneakers, so a a few adjustments. And also, I give, like, I get the reward. You get the reward. When you stand up and put music on, you get more done.
Jordan Gal:You're like, this is like a it's like a high. Like, oh, man. That's that's my zone. That's when I wanna get stuff done. That's what I do.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I listen to music a lot when I work. I never listen to podcasts. I only listen to podcasts, like, when I'm in the car or when I'm out walking with the dog. But, yeah.
Brian Casel:I'm I'm all about Spotify, instrumental tracks. Like, like, I cannot listen to vocals, any lyrics whatsoever when when I'm working. It just screws me. Like, I can't write anything if I'm if I'm hearing words. So I like on on Spotify, they've got, like, bunch of playlists, like, curated playlists already.
Brian Casel:So, the focus category, if you go in there, there's like a whole bunch of, you know, just like, kind of electronic, you know, laid back. But and some of them are actually, I think, designed to, like, get you in in like a focused state, which I
Jordan Gal:think work really well. I like that brain.fm service.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Tried that a little bit too. Cerebral. I I liked that and and it actually did work. It really gets you in a zone, but that was just so repetitive that I was like, I don't know.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Yeah.
Pippin Williamson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:I like
Jordan Gal:I like I have no idea. DJ, musician, have no idea, called Grammatic. He, she, I have no idea because it's just instrumental, but it's so good. It's so upbeat, but repetitive, but not too it's just perfect.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I'll throw in, like, RJD too sometimes or, you know what I also get into is, film scores, But like like electronic film scores and and that kind of stuff. And, like, any shows that I'm watching or any any movies that I saw recently, I'll just go find the soundtrack and and throw that on and and, and I've got, like, a playlist of of of, like, you know, film soundtrack stuff, just all instrumental kinda. It makes it makes working, like, really dramatic and really epic, you know. But, like, it's it's kinda cool.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I listed, like, Lord of the Rings soundtrack like that and I'm, like, you know, saving countries and shit.
Brian Casel:I'm telling you, if you if you work to the inception soundtrack, it's gonna be, like, life or death. You know? It it's awesome. I like it.
Brennan Dunn:I like it.
Jordan Gal:Alright. Cool.
Brian Casel:So what else?
Jordan Gal:That's it, man. That's that's enough. The other last thing, and this is really the last thing, is along with that, I have started taking walks, and I've actually started watching a little TV during the day. Instead of just feeling guilty at all times that I'm not doing everything now, like after lunch, I just go watch like fifteen minutes of TV, and I'm like, this feels good. I'm just not gonna feel guilty about it.
Jordan Gal:I go back to work with just a little, you know, looser. Later, I'll just walk around the block once. It takes maybe ten minutes, but you come back. It just just feels good. So I'm, like like, cheating to, like, you know, give myself little breaks and be easier on myself, and it makes me more energized to go back and focus.
Brian Casel:Oh, totally. I I mean, lunchtime, like, in between, I'll I'll veg out on, politics, TV, that that crap, all bullshit. But get gets me back into into the zone. Like, only so much that I can take of that before it's like, alright, back to work. Cool.
Brian Casel:So, yeah. I mean, on my end, I I think I have like, on the personal update, it's probably the opposite of yours. I'm not feeling so good today. Just kinda stressed. Just feeling like I mean, things are going really well, but it but at the same time, it's like not being as productive as I wanna be from day to day.
Brian Casel:And I think it's due to a bunch of things going on. I mean, number one, I don't have an office. I'm I'm basically working the office is is our two year old's, sleeping room here in in the Airbnb that we're staying at until we we move into our new house, which is not gonna be until next month. So, you know, when she's taking naps like she is now, I'm I'm chilling here on the couch or I'm sitting on the bed or I'm at Starbucks, you know. So it's you know, I'm jumping around.
Brian Casel:I don't really have a a place to, like, get comfortable and get into the zone. Got a lot of distractions go I mean, good distractions, but, you know, nonetheless, I'm breaking up my week a lot where we're in the process of buying this house. You know, there's a lot of things going on with that. My wife is you know, the the baby's due in about six weeks, so we've got doctor appointments we're going to and and everything. And overall, you know, getting back to the health stuff, I mean, I just feel like I'm not as healthy as I as I was.
Brian Casel:I I used to like, all of last year I was on, like, the Bulletproof Coffee and Bulletproof Diet and all that. I've I've kind of abandoned that. So I'm trying to get back on track with
Jordan Gal:that
Brian Casel:stuff. And like I said, I'm getting back into running. I I wanna get back into, you know, playing some kind of sports. I have found that the the healthier that I get, the more productive I am. I mean, obviously.
Brian Casel:And, you know, when I'm not sure why I'm losing energy halfway through the day, it's like, duh. You know, it's because I'm not not exercising, not running, not not eating so well. So it's, yeah. Gotta get back on track with that stuff. And really, the the the stressful thing is that I have so much to do in the business.
Brian Casel:Like, a lot of things are going on that, as I'll talk about in my upcoming updates, I mean, you know, I'm hiring a couple different people at the same time. I'm I'm doing these launches and, you know, I've I've gotta manage the team. I've gotta put out, you know, a couple fires here and there. I I wanna keep hitting my my goals and, like, the the things that I set out for each month, especially when I have my like, things coming up. Like, MicroConf is coming up, so I wanna get a certain batch of work done before we head out there.
Brian Casel:And then, April, we're moving into the new house, so I know that there are gonna be several weeks in there where I'm just gonna be, you know, caught up in in moving. And then April, the baby's coming, so I wanna, take a few weeks off and kinda focus on that. So it's, right now I feel like I'm in a crunch and I'm not in the most productive state when I should be. So that's kinda getting to me right now.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I can sympathize with that. I think everyone listening can sympathize with it. It it's like being thrown off the rhythm is really it makes it very hard to get back into it. The the one thing I would ask you, the things that you feel that you need to get done for the business.
Jordan Gal:I have found myself recently looking at my to do list and then just just looking at something that's been there for three weeks. And I just email the person I'm supposed to do it for, and I say, I'm really busy with the launch. I don't know if I can get this done. I'll get back to you next month, and we'll see if we can make it happen. And then I just crossed it off the list, and I'm like, why was I so stressed if that wasn't that critical?
Jordan Gal:It just wasn't critical.
Brian Casel:So there are things that so, you know, I'll get, like, emails from people and requests for stuff. And some things I'll when I think it's it makes sense. But definitely more so I'm turning a lot of things down. And really for the first time, and I've never really been a fan of doing this, but I've been letting a lot of emails just go unanswered. Like, I'll read them.
Brian Casel:I've in the past, I've tried to give everyone at least a quick reply, even if it takes a few weeks for me to get back to them. But, I mean, now, I do still read all the emails that come in, but I don't answer them. And and even some now that are, like, questions that they're expecting a reply. I'm just like, that's just not relevant for me right now. And and I don't know you, so I just can't do it.
Brian Casel:Like, it it's just not a priority, you know? So
Jordan Gal:Yeah. That's that's so tough. It's someone innocently asking for your time, but it it hurts. It it weighs on you, and then it sits in your inbox, and then you feel guilty they didn't reply to them. It it starts this whole spiral that that definitely can be avoided, but it's hard to it's
Brian Casel:hard to figure out how to do it. Yeah. And and I spoke to a few other folks about this who have, you know, larger audiences than mine. It's like, how do you deal with all this email that comes in? And and how do you like, do you reply to everyone?
Brian Casel:And, like, when is it, like you know, they're like, you know, when I when I switched the mindset to be, like, I don't have to I don't feel that obligation to to reply to every single email that comes in. I mean, at certain at a certain point, you just have to to do that. And and I still try to make a point of of replying to people when I can, and especially when I feel like I actually can be helpful. But when I when I get a question about something that's like, you know, alright, we talked about this on the podcast, or it's it's on a blog post that I've written, you know, you can check that out. I mean, it's, you
Pippin Williamson:know,
Brian Casel:that yeah. I try to point them in that direction if they haven't found it already. But to answer your question about things that that need to get done, I'm talking about things that actually have to get done. And and they have to get scheduled to get done. And some of them are getting pushed off, but some of them are I'm I'm doing, or or I'm trying to do.
Brian Casel:So, like I mean, like, hiring people is is the kind of thing that you really can't push it off for very long before it becomes a a big problem. When when I'm hiring for people that I've like, when we're hiring the fourth or fifth or sixth or seventh writer, it's like, I know how to hire for that, and we just need to kinda get them through the funnel. Right now, as in my upcoming update, I'll talk about I'm hiring for this marketing tech person, which is kind of a new role. So I'm working on that. And that's gonna, like, start a whole big initiative within audience ops.
Brian Casel:And the more that I put this off, the the more that that whole initiative is gonna delay. What else? Like and something that I'm putting off is the Productize Podcast. So, like, here's something that I've literally finished all the work that has to happen. I've recorded 20 episodes.
Brian Casel:They're all edited. They're I've got the website ready to go. I've got the artwork ready to go. I've got the domain. It's it's all ready to go.
Brian Casel:I just haven't taken the time to write to to schedule those are those episodes to publish and write the email newsletter to announce it. They're like
Jordan Gal:Doesn't it doesn't it baffle you why you didn't get why you haven't done it? It's We all have those things.
Brian Casel:It's one of those things. And, like, I I could have launched this thing at least two months ago. And it was supposed to launch two months ago. But every single month, it's like, I'm I've got bigger priorities right now in audience ops that I need to focus my time on. And and I've got these little chunks of work time.
Brian Casel:Like, I'm running to the coffee shop, I've got an hour, I I can do this, this, and this, and then I gotta get get out of it all. You know, you just can't do it all. Gotta choose. And I'm not in the zone in the in a stage where I'm, like, working late hours at night. Like, I don't like, I do relax with my family at night, and that's kind of non negotiable.
Brian Casel:So it's Right. You know, it's It's a
Jordan Gal:very strange thing. It's strange phenomenon. Think about the structure of the corporate environment and how a lot of giant it is waste of time, but a lot of it is built to avoid that because it doesn't give you the option. Because when your boss comes over to you and knocks your desk, is that report ready? You do it in a different way than if you're the boss of audience ops and you get to choose.
Jordan Gal:It's a strange thing. Yeah, I always think of 37 signals, I think rework, the second book or third book, and It talked about uninterrupted time, and I just have this fantasy vision of DHH off in some beautiful office with the door closed working on the same thing for four hours in a row. That's my ideal. How can I get to there? And I hardly ever do that, and it drives me it drives me nuts.
Jordan Gal:It should be part of every day.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And and, you know, a big part of things within audience ops is I'm building systems and I'm putting people in place to take over a lot of the work. Right? Like right now, another thing on my to do list is to train our new salesperson to start taking sales calls off of my plate. And and so, you know, we're not quite there yet, but I think in the next two, three weeks, he'll be taking calls, and that'll start to free up my my calendar a little bit more.
Brian Casel:Our project manager, I'm I'm getting her to to take on more and more responsibility in terms of communicating with clients and not escalating as much to me. So that that's good. And and, you know, the the service side, like, the production is all basically off of my plate at this point. But, you know, there there's still, like, I still need to push new initiatives. Things need to get done.
Brian Casel:And if I'm not working and if I don't have these, like, long stretches of time to work on them, then they're just not gonna get done. But, and at the same time, if I'm not healthy and in a good mindset for for working, then then I'm just not gonna be efficient. Work on it. So that's my personal update and then got a couple more on the business side. So why don't we go back over to you?
Jordan Gal:Alright. Cool. So what we both are working on that we have in common are launches of one variety or another. So neither of us are doing like some giant affiliate launch to make a million dollars in a week sort of thing, but we're each trying to launch something new. I think that's the right thing for us to talk about.
Jordan Gal:In going through this exercise, Cardhook has a card abandonment email application. That's our main product. That's been the only product since the beginning of the company. We are now launching a new product. I finally talk more detail in next week, but it's launching next week.
Jordan Gal:So this is now a second product. So we've had to think about a whole bunch of different things on how do we most effectively launch and then how do we maintain and then, you know, even how is the marketing site set up like
Brian Casel:Actually, have a quick question on that. And, you know, obviously, not gonna give anything away today. But is is this gonna have a separate marketing site, a separate domain? Or is it gonna be part of the cart hook site?
Jordan Gal:We wrestled we wrestled with that, but we we decided that for the time being, at least for phase one, it should just be part of the same website. You look at a bunch of other, you look at Intercom, you look at Mo's, you look at a bunch of companies that have different products and they all keep it under the umbrella of the company, and and we think that's the right approach for this. It also happens to be easier than maintaining a new website and building it from scratch and all that, and it it also happens to work with an SEO mindset of we've done a bunch of work. There's a blog. There's everything that's already happening on karthook.com.
Jordan Gal:And one of our investors is is an SEO whiz, and he was like, you you'll be you'll be crazy to start a new website and and miss out on the past year and a half of work and links that you already have.
Brian Casel:Yeah. It makes especially because it's it's probably for the same audience.
Jordan Gal:Right. It's for the exact same audience. So it might complicate things, but we'll figure it out. I'm not sure how it's gonna end up. If it's gonna be like a sub page with its own thing or open a new window, that I don't really know, but it'll be under the same domain.
Brian Casel:Very cool. So
Jordan Gal:I think what I can do is just try to paint the mental picture of what I've come up with that makes sense for the launch. All these different elements, basically, they're little tasks on the to do list, but how do they all come together to make sense for the initial launch? Now, before I start, the big caveat that I've communicated with my team is that it the launch is important because it can help us start things off on a downhill roll at thirty, forty, 50 miles an hour instead of from zero. But the way we're gonna win in the long term is with the best product in the market. And so it's not only about the launch.
Jordan Gal:We have to take advantage of the launch, but we need to get our work done, but we can't we can't let the success or failure or the level of success of the launch dictate the rest of the of of the business. It's like it's six months from now that's gonna win or lose. That's gonna really build on something. What we can do is do ourselves a favor with the launch and get the ball rolling. So it's like that, I think, was really important for me to state to the team so everyone doesn't focus on the first week as like, this is make or break.
Jordan Gal:And if it doesn't succeed in the first week, then everyone's deflated and the whole company like energy is is bad. So I think that was important. So here's what we're gonna do. I kinda started off centrally with a blog post announcing the new product because the blog post is something that we control. We get to dictate what's in the blog post, the words, the images, everything.
Jordan Gal:That's one of the only things that's fully in our control. That's where it all starts. When the blog post publishes, we want to bring traffic to it. Our friends, our network, our current customers, everything, whatever traffic we can get. If we're going to get traffic to a blog post, we want two things.
Jordan Gal:A, we want a lead magnet because to drive a bunch of traffic to a page and not capture emails doesn't make sense. So we need that. The second thing we need is retargeting pixels because if you're gonna drive a bunch of traffic, they're going to leave, most of them are going to leave without signing up and we want to follow them around. So now we have retargeting pixels and we have display ads for both Google network and Facebook. So traffic that comes into the page, reads our blog post, gets offered a content upgrade to get onto the email list, or they can sign up for the product, that's the ideal.
Jordan Gal:And then when they leave, there are also ads that are gonna be following around for Facebook. Right? So now we have like a blog post, we have Facebook pixels, we have Facebook ads, Google pixel, Google ads, and a content upgrade. And now for the people who we can't get to the blog post, we want to do the outreach. So the outreach is email to whatever list we have, we'll email them.
Jordan Gal:And then the other thing is just more colder advertising. And so because we have created a content upgrade, we can use a few things in Facebook ads. A, we can promote the blog post itself to the right audience, and B, we can also promote the content upgrade itself as a download, as just an opt in, a piece of value. So now the things that we're doing are starting to have multiple uses. So a blog post is a blog post and then it gets sent out by email, it also gets used as a promoted post on Facebook.
Jordan Gal:Once people get there, then that builds a retargeting list. Ideally, people opt into the content upgrade. We have them on our email list. Even if they don't, can use that and promote that on Facebook ads for people to just go to landing page and download that because we've already done the work of creating the PDF content upgrade. And then we use our networks.
Jordan Gal:We use our friends. We use our anyone we can. Right? So we'll put it up on Product Hunt. We'll ask, you'll get an email from me, everyone I know will get an email from me saying, hey, remember anything I've ever done for you ever?
Jordan Gal:Now I'm asking for any love you have for me, give it back and this is the thing to give it back on. Then there's just a distribution strategy. We have my VA using LeadFuse. Holy shit, LeadFuse is legit, man. I know Justin personally.
Jordan Gal:I looked into Fuse a few months ago, but he just launched like a version two. I just signed up this morning for it and was like very impressed.
Brian Casel:That's that's awesome. I haven't used the new version yet. I've I've been using it for just building the prospect list, which was his like phase one. And now now they do the the phase two which is like sending of the emails. That that's awesome.
Jordan Gal:So which is so that that like that tips it over. Yeah. It's valuable to build the prospect list then to just send the emails right there is is just it's too much. It's too good. So there's a reason Justin's successful.
Jordan Gal:It's not just because he's incredibly good looking, it's the product rocks. So I showed it to my VA. So we have a big list of agencies that work with this particular e commerce platform. My VA is going in there, hitting on their LinkedIn profile, adding to lists. We will send an email out to everyone that works with this e commerce platform.
Jordan Gal:It's Shopify, I don't mind saying that. We'll say, Hey, we just launched this product. We think your customers will love it. Sending that to 200 or 300 agencies the day of launch will also help in just getting people there, getting the retargeting going, getting people into our sphere, and then we'll make them an offer of like we have an affiliate program if you're interested. Additionally, we have using our networks, we're going to do, I have some influencer buddies and we'll ask them to go into Facebook groups that they belong to and say, Hey, my friend Jordan just launched this product, check it out.
Jordan Gal:So we're basically just trying to have one essential- It's
Brian Casel:going out all the stops.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. It's good. But it's like, it starts off in the middle, right, in this blog post and then it just like expands outward trying to bring people into it, into the product, into the post, into the retargeting list, the email list.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Is the post again, without giving anything away, like is the post like an announcement post? Like, hey, we just launched this thing and here's what it's all about. This is what this product does. Or is it like an educational post?
Brian Casel:Like, here's some best practices about how to do this thing and we have a tool that also dealt with Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Think that's a great question. I I probably would have forgotten to cover this if you hadn't asked it. The way I'm going about the post is instead of an announcement, it'll be kind of like a hybrid because my my thinking on this is if you just make an announcement, make it very company focused, we'll get links to it and we'll get people coming in, it'll just be about us. But if we think about the midterm and long term, if it's an educational post about the topic itself, then all those links that come in all will be pointing to what will turn into an authority article. And so three, four, five, six, twelve months from now, when people do a search for exactly the topic that the product is for, ideally that article makes its way up in the rankings.
Jordan Gal:And so the SEO juice gets payoff for a long time instead of just the announcement. So it's almost like an opportunity to show our expertise in why we built the product a certain way by showing our expertise in the actual, you know, in the product category.
Brian Casel:I love it. You can continue to promote that blog post six, twelve months from now.
Jordan Gal:Right. Forever. Anyone who hasn't seen that blog post is gonna see it and it will still make sense six months from today. Right.
Brian Casel:And, I mean, I don't wanna I don't wanna give too much away here, but the thing that you're doing is probably highly searched for, and there probably are not that many web pages offering the solution for it yet, because that solution does not exist until next week.
Jordan Gal:Right. So that's
Brian Casel:So you're gonna be in a really good position Right. To be ideal is to be, the authority, like, site in Google for that.
Jordan Gal:Right. If if we wanna get into a little bit of, like, the politics of it, the the hope in the launch is that to make a just big enough splash in the first week that we get some big links and then use that on that page and on the marketing site to show that we've been linked to by VentureBeat and Lifehacker and whatever else. And that that starts to perpetuate itself as like, oh, these are the leaders in the market. That's why they're more expensive and that's why I should go with them even though there are cheaper options. So it's like trying to take advantage of the first mover advantage thing by cheating a little, just generating some interest and then using that interest to generate more interest and more credibility.
Jordan Gal:And then there are the x factors that we are not in control of. Right? Everything we just talked about, we are in control of. Decide what to write, we get to decide what to do with the ads, we get to decide who to ask for help, that sort of thing. Then there's luck.
Jordan Gal:That's the part we can control if Shopify links to us, that changes everything. If some big blogger picks it up, that kind of changes everything. So it's like we're doing what we can and we think by doing all that work and the fact that we're building something that people want, you know, has a way of finding that that that scenario.
Brian Casel:Very cool, man. And so, like, all these tasks, it's like the the blog post, the the ads, the retargeting, the pixels, the the outreach. Looking at your team in Cardhook, is that base like, that stuff, is that, like, your tasks this week and these final days leading up to to launch while, Ben and and and the developers are kinda working on the tech side and getting finishing finishing touches on the software?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I would say those are my tasks, but more so they are my responsibilities. It doesn't really matter if I'm the one that does it. Right? We we have a Facebook ads guy, Victor at abstract agency in New York, who's awesome.
Jordan Gal:And so he's gonna do a lot of the work on Facebook ads, it's my responsibility to make sure it gets done. So I need to help him along. I'm not just gonna say, go run these ads. I'm gonna say, this is the positioning. Here is an image.
Jordan Gal:Right? We use Canva. So I share the image with them in Canva and I say use this image. Here's the blog post. Push it to this audience and let me know if you need any help on the copy.
Jordan Gal:So it's like I'm not doing all those things, but those things are my responsibility.
Brian Casel:Very cool.
Jordan Gal:Cool. So that's my side of things. Wish wish me luck.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I'm excited, man. I I think it's gonna be I think it's gonna be great. You know, I'm excited to see it roll out and, you know, maybe next week, we can get a little bit more detail and and maybe a little bit more backstory into, you know, once you can talk openly about what it is and you can give us kind of the backstory.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. The backstory is kinda funny. So I'll be happy to get into that. Alright. Cool.
Jordan Gal:So talk to us about what what you have going on.
Brian Casel:So okay. So I've got two updates. The the launch one, I'll I'll try to run through a little bit faster. So we're gearing up now to launch the Landing Pages plugin. Probably by the time this this podcast goes live, it it should be live.
Brian Casel:So you can check that out if you want at the AudienceOps shop, which is at shop.audienceops.com. And, that's where we basically sell our plugins from AudienceOps. And so, you know, Landing Pages, it's it's it's for creating it's a plugin for creating Landing Pages on your site. And you were talking about, the strategy where you're promoting the blog post, you're setting the retargeting pixel for the content upgrade. We already sell the content upgrade piece.
Brian Casel:Now we're gonna be using and selling the landing pages piece, which you can use to bring retargeted people back to a site to to download the content upgrade or download or or get in on your on your email course. It's basically a tool to launch email courses or or any kind of giveaway in a dedicated landing pages without having to, you know, kinda fumble around with with another tool or or pick apart your WordPress theme just to create a landing page, you know. It The idea is to help you launch something really fast and just get it out the door, but it's actually a a well designed page. So that's the idea with it. And I'm going through, like, my standard launch process at this point, which I've used a number of times for a bunch of different products over the years now.
Brian Casel:It's pretty simple, you know, just kind of planning a live webinar workshop for about about the topic. And I'll be teaching, I think I called the webinar something like the fundamentals of a high converting landing page. So how to how to design a landing page that converts really well. I'm gonna be talking about, like, five best practices. And then, of course, at the end of the workshop, it's, Okay.
Brian Casel:I just taught you these best practices. Here's the best way to implement them and actually launch your own Landing Page using all these things that I just taught you using the Landing Pages plugin. So, I a couple days ago, I sent out an email to my list, promoting this live webinar. I've already done a few webinars before on Audience Ops. So all I'm doing is, like, reusing those same pages and just tweaking the the language.
Brian Casel:Same email sequences, again, tweaking like the dates and tweaking the subject lines and and the language and whatnot. Just kinda duplicating those, lining them all up. I've I've got all that stuff queued up. I'm I'm gonna be doing the live webinar next week. And then I'll have, like, a promotional period, basically, from, like, Tuesday through Sunday night to kinda promote a 20% off discount.
Brian Casel:It's like a launch discount. Everybody on the webinar I haven't checked the the numbers, but I think so far, we've got a few 100 people registered for this webinar. So that should be pretty good. And that's that's basically it. And then so this webinar that I'm putting together, like the slides and everything, I am gonna be doing it live for that initial launch, but then I'm also gonna record a version of of me going through the slides and and presenting the workshop, which I'll then use as as a recorded asset that I can put into an evergreen email sequence.
Brian Casel:And then I'll line that up that so that it's basically promoting the Landing Pages plugin throughout the year, and I can set up some automation in the back end of Drift where if you kind of indicate interest in Landing Pages, maybe you maybe you downloaded a content upgrade related related to to Landing Pages or or you read a Landing Pages related blog post, that can kinda trigger you into a sequence that leads you to to watch this recorded workshop and get an offer to to to buy the plugin. So that's essentially how we're gonna drive, ongoing sales of of both of our plugins, along with some some paid traffic as well. So that's basically the update there. We'll we'll see how that one goes. We had a pretty good launch of our first plugin, the content upgrades plugin.
Brian Casel:And that continues to drive some sales. I'd like to see more on an on an ongoing basis, but that'll be the next thing that I'm working on is is ramping up some paid traffic and retargeting which should hopefully drive like we have the funnels built out and and the back end email automation sequences all built out already. We just need to drive more leads through the funnel at this point. So so so, yeah, that's the plan.
Jordan Gal:Nice. And and so you're using the existing list of people and promoting the webinar to kick things off to to them.
Brian Casel:Yeah. You know, this is something that I went back and forth on. The landing pa so I've had the landing page sales page up for a couple weeks now, as like a coming soon version of it. So I I have been building somewhat of a early access, like, enter your email if you're interested in the Landing Pages plugin when it comes out. So we've we've got some people who've who've signed up for that.
Brian Casel:But what I did was I I sent a one time email to the entire list. Like, my entire list on on castjam.com, which is still separate from the audience apps list. Like, that has its own drip account and everything. And there's I mean, there's a lot of overlap because a lot of people come over from my audience into the audience ops audience. But I I I mean, I think that I set it up so that people are not gonna be getting duplicate emails.
Brian Casel:But basically, sent it to my to my main list. Just to and that's just one email like pitching the the workshop. If you're not interested in the workshop, then that's all you're gonna see. But then there's a link from that that leads you over to the landing page on audienceops.com to register for the for the live webinar. And once you do that, then you're in the sequence coming from the Audience Ops account, which will give you like three or four reminder emails and then, you know, it's live the web on the webinar day, and then about three emails following up to kinda promote the the discount.
Jordan Gal:Nice. Yeah. I want that that launch sequence. You know, it's that that's the hardest one is to do it once, to to come up with those emails and and, like, wrap your mind around, like, when should they get this? Should they get this right away?
Jordan Gal:What if they get the GoToWebinar confirmation at the same time? Do I want them getting two emails within a minute? And just thinking all through that stuff and then writing out the copy the first time is hard.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I've been, I've been using the same sequence for for a while. I've I've used it on on my my own blog. I've used it on audience ops a couple times. Initially, I I learned the sequence from, from Brennan, You know, seeing what what he's been doing and then and then kind of adapting it to my own style a little bit.
Brian Casel:And and, I I like The whole idea at this point is to just repeat the process and put as as as little decision making into it as possible. Like, I've already decided on the strategy and the sequence and the timing of the emails. I just need to duplicate it. And that's it. Right.
Brian Casel:You know?
Jordan Gal:Change up a few words, make it appropriate for the the situation. I mean, that's ideal. That that's how the whole business should be. Yep. Just that over and over again.
Brian Casel:Yeah. So I've got one more update after that, but why don't we go back to you?
Jordan Gal:I don't think I have anything else. That's it. Having a baby and and giving birth to a new product. I'm awful.
Brian Casel:Yeah, not much. So the only other thing I'll try to mention quickly here is hiring this new marketing tech position. How does that go? Well, focused pretty heavily on that right now. And I talked about it in previous episodes, kind of announcing it.
Brian Casel:If you are interested, I mean, I'm I'm still collecting applicants, but I've I already have a lot of applications at this point. That's over at audienceops.com/jobs. And I so last week, put up job posts in a couple different places. We work remotely, growthhackers.com. I put out a couple tweets about it.
Brian Casel:I mentioned it a bunch of times here on this podcast. I'm also in a couple of communities. So I I posted to the DC, the Dynamite Circle. I'm in there. I posted to Founder Cafe, and I posted to my, Productize community.
Brian Casel:And those are places where I was kinda asking advice about the position, but at the same time kinda promoting the position as well. Through that, I got about, I think, like 60 applications so far. It doesn't sound like a lot, given that I posted in so many different places. But I actually ask a lot of questions and and ask them to write a lot. So it it takes a a bit of time to actually apply for this position.
Brian Casel:So you've gotta be really interested to take some time. So out of those 60, I think I start about 10 or twelve twelve of them as, like, standout app applications. In the next two or three days, I'm gonna pick about five of those people to schedule interviews with. And I'll try to get those interviews done next week. After that, I'll do a test project.
Brian Casel:I'm trying to figure out what that should be. I'm I'm thinking I'm gonna have them create a a PPC campaign plan for audience ops. And, again, this goes back to exactly what you've been talking about. What what we're gonna start doing is using promoted Facebook posts to promote existing article blog articles, and then use use retargeting to get them to come back and opt in for the content upgrade if they haven't already. And so I want them to basically set up that system for audience ops.
Brian Casel:And and I think the test project will be like, know, write out the plan for this. How are you gonna target it? How are you gonna create the ads? What are the sequences gonna look like? And I'll kind of evaluate them based on that.
Brian Casel:And then, you know, from there, I'm gonna kind of offer one person the the part time position, which I expect within two to three months, that'll turn into full time position. And this is like a new role within audience ops, and so I've I've put together some goals that I that I have for what I want this person and what their role to to really grow into. So the way that I'm thinking about it is within the first two months And I don't know. I mean, maybe this will happen sooner than that. But within the first two months, I want them to launch and test PPC campaigns for our own blog.
Brian Casel:PPC and retargeting, so that we're we're on a regular basis. We're we're running these paid campaigns to promote our own content and drive our email list. And I think over a two month period, they can really refine that and get it to a point where like, Okay. This method really works. We're seeing results.
Brian Casel:We're predictably driving email subscribers. And so that's what I wanna happen in the first two months, is get it really working for us. And then within within the next month, three months from now, I wanna have that whole system documented. Like, method of doing this, all documented. And then built out into a process that this person can run on a monthly basis for our clients.
Brian Casel:So that means it has to become like a very predictable, repeatable process. Like, every time we we set up a Facebook campaign this way, we set up retargeting this way, we connect it to the blog post in in this way, and we get the whole funnel working. And we'll we'll tie it in with with drip email sequences. And so they're gonna document and and get that into like a a rock solid process. And so within four months, I wanna begin rolling that out to clients.
Brian Casel:And I don't know. I mean, maybe this will happen sooner than that, but, you know
Jordan Gal:I mean, maybe you try with one or two clients sooner, but the process takes a while.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. So, like, within four months, wanna be rolling it out to, like, three or more clients. And and, you know, that'll become like an upsell on on the audience app service.
Jordan Gal:That's a dangerous upsell,
Brennan Dunn:my man. That's that's it's really good. I
Jordan Gal:would point you toward an interview I did on the Cardhook podcast with Aaron Zakowski, who runs aaronzakowski.com. He basically does Facebook ads for SaaS businesses. So I had him to talk a little bit more about e commerce, but he does mostly for SaaS. And he has this incredible funnel strategy that I basically just wanted to throw my money at him. It makes so much sense where you take your new blog post and promote it, And then the retargeting is this seemingly sophisticated, but actually quite it's just really simple.
Jordan Gal:And he does like a funnel. So what he does is he shows once you're on the retargeting list, he shows you a certain ad for a few days and then a different ad. So between days one and three, you get one type of ad and offer. Then between days four and eight, you get something else. And between days nine and eleven and then between days 12.
Jordan Gal:So he has like this thirty day funnel where you never get sick of the same boring ad. Then you also, oh, it's brilliant. And then you start to learn which offers work and when and then it's a funnel that you can optimize, which is perfect for a service business like yours, because you can say, we'll help you build this stuff out and over the next twelve months, we're gonna we're gonna nail this thing for you.
Brian Casel:I definitely gotta check that out because, you know, one of the things that I've been struggling with is trying to figure out how are we gonna promote all these different products from Audience Ops. We we have our main service, like the productized service, having us do the content for you on your on your site. But now we're we're also promoting the content upgrades plugin, and we're gonna be promoting the landing pages plugin. And later on we'll be promoting, you know, like a training product from audience ops. So like maybe that's maybe that's the way that we do it like with paid ads is, you know, like switch it up, like start with promoting the plugins and then the service and then, you know.
Jordan Gal:Right. You don't know what's gonna resonate with that person. So someone comes and hits a blog post, then for the first three days you could try to get them back with an ad for the content upgrade for the original post. And then whether or not they take it, then next for the next three or four days, you promote a webinar for the landing pages plugin. Then three or four days after that, you promote something else entirely.
Jordan Gal:Then you can figure out, you're hitting them up with all these different offers. Depending on the person, what resonates with them and what brings them into universe, you don't really know, but they're being exposed to all these things and it's automated and it has the added benefit of avoiding ad fatigue. Because we've seen that where we just send the same ad to people for like two weeks straight and they're like, dude, stop. No. I'm not gonna,
Pippin Williamson:you know, leave me alone
Jordan Gal:with it. And that that sucks. So that's part of what made us wanna look into that sort of thing.
Brian Casel:I like it. Yeah. That's that's awesome. Yeah. We'll have to link that up in the show notes for sure.
Brian Casel:Good stuff, man.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Very nice. Cool, man. So good luck over the next week.
Brian Casel:By
Jordan Gal:the We love you time we talk again, Brian. We're gonna have a a third bundle.
Brian Casel:You're gonna be a father of three. Yeah. Awesome, man. Yeah. Well, keep us posted and talk talk next week, maybe.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Maybe is right. Alright. Cool.
Brian Casel:See you, Ryan. Later.
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