0:00

By the way, going back to se O again, there's this. Did

0:02

you see the WU commerce SEO

0:04

migration disaster?

0:06

No?

0:07

So, okay, WU Commerce they

0:09

are Would you call them a plug

0:11

in for WordPress where it helps enable WordPress

0:14

sites to do e commerce. That's basically what it is at the end

0:16

of the day. Yeah, yeah, it's it's

0:18

a plugin that just makes your WordPress more

0:20

like commerce I but it's not as good. Yeah.

0:22

So Cyrus Shepherd on

0:25

Twitter said this crazy. Five months after

0:28

completing a major domain migration, WU

0:30

commerce will revert the entire thing after

0:32

traffic goes south. This after

0:34

assembling a group of SEO experts

0:36

and consultants quote unquote, got to be

0:38

honest, the chance of things going worse after

0:40

a second migration is easily

0:42

greater than zero. So basically,

0:45

in this graph over here, they basically

0:47

migrated from WU commerce to wu dot com

0:49

and traffic just tanks, like completely

0:51

fell off a cliff, like basically to zero. And

0:54

now they seem to have switched back. It seems

0:57

like they're they're they

1:02

just reversed back in like November of twenty twenty

1:04

three. The traffic is coming back slowly, but

1:06

it's still like maybe forty percent

1:08

of what it was before. That sucks,

1:11

But from the grand scheme of things, WordPress

1:13

can drive most assignments from WordPress dot com.

1:16

Yeah, it's such a big business,

1:19

you get what I mean? Like, I totally agree, right,

1:21

Like, yeah, you shouldn't botch these

1:23

migrations, and it's important to do them right because

1:25

you're just losing extra revenue.

1:28

Oh you're so lucky, or drink did and spill into your

1:31

laptop.

1:32

But with the WordPress migration,

1:35

with the site migrations, yeah, ideally you

1:37

want your traffic to go up or at least stay the same.

1:41

For a business of that size, I

1:43

don't think it matters too much.

1:45

But again I would have been pissed and I would

1:47

have had someone fix it right away.

1:48

Yeah, you'd gone ape shit. I would have done ape

1:50

shit.

1:51

Yeah. They just bought a business for one hundred and

1:53

twenty five million, was it?

1:54

I don't remember.

1:55

Yeah, No, the article ended up coming out.

1:57

I think it. Well, that caught me out.

1:58

They'll be fine, I mean, but this is stuff

2:01

that This is just what happens when companies don't

2:03

take SEO seriously, Like a migration's really hard.

2:05

Translations translation can get complicated

2:08

too, like all these things that you want to do at scale.

2:12

You want to make sure that you're talking to the right people.

2:13

At the end of the day, Wordpressed owner acquires

2:16

Beeper, the app that briefly brought

2:19

I Message to Android one hundred and twenty five

2:21

million dollars. Huh and then

2:23

they bought was it text dot com?

2:25

Text dot com? They bought that last

2:27

October?

2:28

Oh yeah, so they're going on a little spree.

2:31

Yeah. Now they want to do content

2:33

not just on a blog. They also want to do it

2:35

through uh messaging.

2:38

But I don't think that's that much of a big pain.

2:40

Like sometimes people just

2:42

start buying stupid stuff.

2:44

So, dude, you have an iPhone, I have an

2:46

iPhone. Do you really care if you text

2:48

Android people and it's on I Message? Nope,

2:51

me either, I text them it goes through.

2:53

Why don't need to buy an app that has

2:56

multi service messaging app? Like?

2:58

Who can care?

2:58

You know? So like reaching reading that Amazon

3:01

book working backwards? You know why the firephone

3:03

failed? Why because so

3:06

they were all gung ho on

3:08

this one feature to.

3:10

Cut you off. What is the firephone?

3:12

So that's okay, this is this

3:14

is when Amazon launched a phone they were

3:16

trying to compete with like the iPhone and everything, right,

3:18

And Jeff Bezos was really sold on it. In fact, he was

3:20

the one that helped push the narrative

3:22

through to get this this product out there. What

3:25

they were selling was like this like four dimensional

3:27

camera or whatever that can do all these things like

3:29

you can you know, scan your your your

3:31

sunglasses and you

3:34

know you'll see it in like like all these different views,

3:36

right, But nobody gets a crap about that,

3:38

right. It's all you care about is with

3:40

your iPhone. You care about the ecosystem, the apps,

3:42

the user, the usability of it, all these things. Right.

3:45

So that's where they missed the mark because they didn't do customer

3:47

development. They thought that the feature that they

3:49

had was so game changing that well

3:52

at the end of the day, even when they sold it at a really

3:54

high price. But eventually

3:57

they got to a point where it just like we should just give this away

3:59

and try to get people to signup the prime. Even then when

4:01

they start to start to give it away, nobody wanted

4:03

it. Dude. It reminds

4:05

me of like the snap goggles. Everyone's like,

4:07

oh, these are really cool, you can take pictures.

4:09

I had a pair.

4:10

You had, I'm like, who's gonna. Okay,

4:12

Eric bought it. He's testing for

4:14

probably marketing purposes, But who

4:17

really wants to buy goggles just to take pictures.

4:20

It's just like, no, I could just

4:22

bust out my phone and click a picture because it doesn't

4:25

look that.

4:25

Good, you know.

4:25

It's it's kind of like the metal ones. So the metal

4:28

ones they look cool. They look I mean I think they kind of looked

4:30

like this, right.

4:31

So you already are those ray bands?

4:33

No, but the ray bands it's the

4:35

same thing as the Snap thing where you could hit it. I don't

4:37

take like a sixty second story. Where are they tom Ford?

4:40

No, but you're not Tom Ford.

4:42

But anyway, if you can do that, it's kind of cool, like

4:44

we can like on command,

4:46

I can hit it. It's just I think it was too early for its

4:48

time, and plus not many people use Snap. So

4:51

what I'm looking for is imagine wearing

4:53

a pair of glasses like ray

4:56

bands or anything like that, and

4:58

getting what you get and and Apple's

5:00

vision pro right in front of your face.

5:03

Yes, that'll sell like crazy. Yes, if

5:05

that would sell today for twenty grand I

5:07

would pay the money for it, yep.

5:09

Yeah. And so it's the convenience

5:11

of it.

5:12

It's the usability of it, and

5:16

it helps you create content a lot more naturally.

5:18

That's why we would pay for it too. That's a big reason. I

5:20

think it would also make life better. Yep.

5:23

You know, I don't know about you, but like when I walk around,

5:26

you.

5:26

Can't wear a big Yeah.

5:28

Not just for that, but like, I'm always curious about

5:30

things, and sometimes my wife always tells

5:32

me, like should like elbow me. Like we're in like a store

5:35

and I'm like, so, how many sales do you guys do per

5:37

day? What's your monthly revenue? What portion is cash?

5:39

What portion?

5:40

And She's like, Neil, they think you're gonna rob them.

5:42

You can't talk like this. I was like, I'm just

5:45

curious to learn about their business.

5:47

Yeah.

5:47

It's like it'll be an assistant that follows you around, so

5:50

I think we'll eventually get there. Yeah.

5:54

So on a side note,

5:56

Oh crap, my, there

5:59

you go.

5:59

My sheet just disappeared.

6:01

It's okay, I can take it from here. So

6:03

you want to know? So Chimath

6:06

said this recently. He said that content

6:08

creators are the new form of demand gen

6:10

Did you see that you listened to the recent all in I

6:13

did not so, which is interesting because when

6:15

you think about you think about Chama's pobaly

6:17

Hepatia, Mark and Dreesen, you think about Brad

6:19

Gerstner, right, Bill Gurley for example. These

6:21

are all well known vcs. All they've all done

6:23

very well for themselves. Do they need more money,

6:26

not necessarily. Do they want more deals?

6:28

Yeah they do.

6:30

So they're creating podcasts or writing newsletters.

6:32

They're doing all They're making little communities. And

6:36

I think it's interesting because it's marketing

6:38

is getting harder and when you look

6:41

at the creator payout seventy percent growing

6:43

year on year, it's going to continue to compound even more.

6:46

The question is are creators the

6:48

next form of demand gen? And we see from Marside

6:50

we're seeing a continued rise in interest

6:53

in influencer marketing. It's

6:56

funny, I do think creators

6:58

are amazing demand gen. Way

7:00

to attract more demand,

7:04

we've shifted how we look at marketing. A

7:07

lot of times we used to look at platforms like

7:09

Instagram, especially when it comes to social

7:11

Instagram or TikTok. We no longer

7:13

look at platforms like Instagram or TikTok

7:16

unless it's like for paid ads, but

7:19

for organic we mainly focus on the people

7:21

who are the people that are gaining

7:23

the attention and are they relevant

7:26

enough for the product or service that we have, and

7:28

can we work with them because they can generate

7:31

demand. Look at mister bast and how much

7:33

demand he generates for chocolate or

7:35

burgers or whatever is that he wants to sell

7:37

that day. And I'm assuming when you work with these

7:39

influencers, you're just taking a cut. Like let's say I charge

7:41

one hundred thousand dollars, you probably just take ten percent

7:43

or something like that, right. No,

7:46

Typically it's a fee to

7:49

do all the work and the outreach and stuff like

7:51

that.

7:52

You're doing cost plus. Yeah, yeah,

7:54

got it.

7:55

So you're not taking a cut on whatever the influencer

7:57

charges.

7:58

It depends a lot of

8:00

times is cost plus. Sometimes it is a cut.

8:02

It depends on the corporation and how their

8:04

structure and they want it to be done internally,

8:07

got it.

8:07

Yeah, So it's a collaboration.

8:09

Yeah, Because for some companies they're just like, here's

8:11

our budget, this is the ROI we're expecting.

8:14

We want you to go spend it. We don't want to pay you any

8:16

fees. Take it from the budget.

8:18

And then some are like, no, we want

8:21

you to tell us what your fees are,

8:23

and either way, we're transparent in both ways,

8:25

but just certain organizations

8:27

are like, I need it done this

8:29

way for accounting or internal

8:32

purposes to get approval, and we're like, all right,

8:34

that's what has their own incentives. But yeah,

8:37

all right, real quick, I need

8:39

to tell you about the group that Neil and I

8:41

created called the Agency Owners Association.

8:44

And this is a group that's similar to entrepreneurial

8:46

organizations such as YPO or EO. By

8:48

the way, Neil and I are both YPO, but we

8:50

thought it would be really cool if we're able to

8:52

create a group that's dedicated to agency

8:54

owners to helping them scale. So you could be at six

8:57

figures, seven figures, eight figures. We have different groups

8:59

for different levels. All you have to do is go

9:01

to marketing school the io Slash

9:03

Agency. Again, that's marketing school, the Ioslash

9:05

agency, and you can go there to apply.

9:08

And I will tell you right now what we're doing is there's

9:10

an online community there is

9:12

we do calls every now and then there's stuff that

9:15

we share in there that we don't share publicly,

9:17

and you can at least the online community you can

9:19

counsel anytime, so you can go there to learn more about

9:21

it.

9:22

And that being said, back to the

9:25

podcast.

9:26

On that note, speaking of demand

9:28

gen and brands, did you see the value

9:30

of the top one hundred B to B brands are

9:32

up ten percent versus last year. This

9:35

is from Marketing Week.

9:37

No, I haven't seen it.

9:38

Yeah, so B to B companies have been doubling

9:40

down on branding.

9:42

Everyone's like, oh, the.

9:43

Economy's struggling, it's a bad

9:45

time. People are pulling back. Yes,

9:47

they may be pulling back on certain sales or

9:49

marketing spend, but a lot of

9:51

them have been doubling down on marketing

9:54

efforts that help with brand growth, and

9:57

it shows that the value of their brands

9:59

are up ten percent. When

10:02

people are running scared, they're hitting

10:04

the market harder because they see potential

10:06

growth opportunities. Be

10:09

fearful when others are greedy.

10:11

Be greedy when others are fearful.

10:13

Yeah, the Warren Buffet quote.

10:15

And it makes sense too, because what's

10:17

happened over the last year and a half

10:19

two years, actually, it's been roughly two years.

10:21

In the market started getting bad at

10:24

first, everyone was afraid, and they're cutting back and

10:26

people are like, Oh, we're kind of getting used to this environment.

10:28

Business still isn't that bad. Yeah, let's

10:30

keep spending and doubling down and

10:33

gobble up more market share when things are cheaper.

10:35

That's what happens.

10:36

So typically what happens when when people become

10:39

This is why Warren Buffett has such a big cash pile,

10:41

right He's waiting for things to get really

10:43

bad. Who knows when that day comes, right, knock on wood, But

10:45

that's when he's going to deploy a huge chunk of

10:48

his capital, and so he's going to become

10:50

greedy when others are fearful. I'm kind

10:52

of seeing this more in business right now, where entrepreneurs

10:54

have been sitting on the side for a while and we've

10:56

all been like a little fearful for a while, and

10:58

now it's kind of like, okay, it kind of now

11:01

it seems like a good time to maybe start going for it a little

11:03

bit. And that's what's happening, dude.

11:05

I think this is the best time in the economy.

11:07

And again this is not financial advice, but

11:10

I think this is one of the best times in the economy to double

11:12

down and just go hard on marketing.

11:15

By Betters yeah,

11:17

dude, that's where the opportunities

11:19

are, right.

11:20

It's just like.

11:22

A lot of people are shy or

11:25

they're struggling, and they're

11:27

shy because they've been, you

11:29

know, down for quite a bit and they just are

11:31

depressed and they're just like, look, I don't want to get up, I

11:33

don't want to keep going. I don't want to push

11:36

too much harder. And we're buying

11:39

companies right now from founders who are burnt

11:41

out, no joke, like we're going to close the deal

11:43

next month. Great founders, great company.

11:45

They work with amazing brands. I think founders

11:48

are saying they work with amazing brands like

11:50

Levi's and Dominoes and Grand

11:53

Hyad and Grab

11:55

and Rentold and Cannon, like real

11:57

enterprise brands, and

12:00

a lot of the founders are just burnt out and they

12:03

just want to be part of a larger

12:05

organization that can help them.

12:07

Two lessons there.

12:07

One, yes, go buy them when

12:09

they're when they're burnt out, and probably when

12:11

things are a little tougher so you can get a better multiple

12:14

or better valuation, I should say. The

12:17

other thing is if you can keep the founders amazing,

12:19

because the founder is usually a lot of there's a lot of

12:21

brand not brand equity, but a lot of good

12:24

will is built up with the founders at the end of the day. And

12:27

the other thing is, by the way, don't think that you can't afford

12:29

these things. You can.

12:30

There's a lot of different ways to do these deals, right.

12:32

You can. You can take money from a balance

12:34

sheet, you can seller finance, you can trade

12:37

equity, roll them into your company. Right,

12:39

there's a lot of ways to do these deals. It's SPA

12:42

financing, SBA financing, that's up to five

12:44

million dollars. Right, you have to buy the whole thing,

12:46

though, I think with the SBA, the

12:48

founder can't stay from my understanding, I

12:50

could be wrong, though, I don't know. But

12:53

Eric, who's done a few deals in the past

12:56

creative, you got outside debt

12:58

partners, you got sp loans, and

13:01

you've done sellar based financing, all

13:03

the things, all the creative things, but with

13:05

specific deals you've done a combination of all

13:07

of them just for even one deal, right yep.

13:10

And you can get really creative.

13:11

Like you don't have to just take one

13:13

route. If something gives you part of

13:15

the money but not everything, you can you

13:18

know, add a few more things in there to make

13:20

a deal work. Yeah, and then you can have there's

13:22

a private equity, does it? I mean you just study private equity

13:25

they have oftentimes with the agencies, if

13:27

you keep the founders, usually there's like a three to

13:29

four year what is it, it's not a it's

13:31

not an ad back.

13:32

What do you call it when you're not or not?

13:34

Yeah?

13:35

Yeah, yeah, and.

13:36

They usually they usually still

13:38

have equity, and it is they don't want to just because

13:40

they want the founders to have some skin in the game. They

13:42

don't want to just like walk off into the sunset because

13:45

they need that founder because there's a lot of information

13:47

they know. Because when you're buying a company, by

13:49

the way, you're getting their best face,

13:53

you really don't know all the skeletons in the closet.

13:54

So ideally you can keep the founder on. So

13:57

we're gonna end it.

13:58

Go to marketing school at Aisles Agency if you

14:00

want to grow your agency faster. That's the community

14:02

that Neil and I have. We're like communities everything.

14:05

We think it's the next funnel, the next way of growing

14:07

your audience through community. Check

14:09

it out, don't forget to rate, subscribe it helps

14:11

scrow let us what you let us know, what you continue

14:13

to think about these long form episodes,

14:16

and we'll see you. We'll

14:18

see in the next episode.