Latest / eCommerce Podcast / TikTok Shop is Changing Everything for eCommerce Demand Generation | Jordan West

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TikTok Shop is Changing Everything for eCommerce Demand Generation | Jordan West · eCommerce Podcast

0:04
Welcome to the eCommerce Podcast.
0:06
My name is Matt Edmundson, and we are chatting today about all
0:09
things eCommerce, as you would probably expect, but specifically.
0:13
We are talking to, uh, a, an absolute legend, uh, Jordan West about TikTok shop.
0:18
We're gonna get into all of that and if you're new to the show very well and
0:23
welcome to you, make sure you like and subscribe and do all of that sort of good
0:25
stuff 'cause it's great to see you here.
0:27
Um, and of course to stay right off the bat, you, if you haven't done
0:30
so already, come connect with me on LinkedIn, connect with Jordan on LinkedIn.
0:34
Jordan, you are perhaps one of the busiest men on LinkedIn.
0:36
It seems you, you have been killing it recently.
0:41
You know it's funny, I tried to hire somebody to help me.
0:45
Um, and so I was like, okay, I'm gonna train you.
0:49
I'm gonna give you the ideas and I'm gonna train you to write like me.
0:54
And it was three months and I didn't publish a single one.
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And it took me so long.
0:59
And I was like, and I realized, I'm like, now there's some things that
1:02
you can, that you can outsource.
1:07
People would argue, yeah.
1:08
Yeah, go ahead.
1:08
You can outsource your writing if you, if you want.
1:10
I think that there's some things that really depends and so my reach actually
1:14
interestingly, went down during that time as I was trying to go back and forth
1:19
with him on this sort of stuff immensely.
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And I was like, oh yeah, that's right.
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There's some things you can outsource, some things that you
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cannot and that you should not.
1:27
Right.
1:28
And for me, I think that writing is one of the things that I love to do.
1:32
Um, I was gonna call it a superpower.
1:33
I don't know if it's a superpower.
1:34
I wouldn't say I'm like.
1:35
A, a great writer.
1:36
I think I just, I love communicating and I love sharing things that come up
1:42
throughout the day because I have so many different conversations, whether it's with
1:44
like consulting clients or at our agency
1:47
or, you know, uh, anything or with like really smart people like you where
1:50
I'm like, Ooh, I need to share this.
1:52
I need to share this now.
1:54
That's, that's the only reason that I prolifically post on LinkedIn.
1:58
it's that, but it's, I, I mean, I, I love it and I, I, you know, it's great to
2:02
follow it and, and, and connect with it.
2:03
And I think it's, um, the, the way you write, I'm, I'm always, I'm
2:09
always drawn by how well you'd, I dunno if you do it intentionally,
2:12
but the whole sales side of things.
2:14
Like, Do you know what I mean?
2:16
It's, you, you do the whole fear of missing out thing really.
2:19
Well, you do the whole, I'm drawn in by the information and if I
2:23
don't get involved in this or if I don't stay connected with you, then
2:25
I'm like, I'm gonna be the biggest loser on the planet kind of thing.
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And, and it's like,
2:31
I, don't mean to do that, Matt.
2:33
no, I don't.
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And I, but I, I don't think it's intentional, but I think you do.
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It just comes across super well, you know, and I can, so I can
2:39
see why your reach is growing.
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'cause I think that draws people in the way you do it.
2:44
Hmm.
2:44
Well that's super nice.
2:46
It's, it's also interesting, and I know, you know, this is the, the
2:49
e-comm podcast, the eCommerce Podcast.
2:51
Okay.
2:51
So don't worry, we're gonna talk about eCommerce here, but, but I think that
2:54
there's something very interesting about you and me being non-Americans, right?
2:59
And that, that we can.
3:01
Like, I've often thought, why are Canadians specifically, and I think
3:06
that, I think that British are similar to this, really good marketers to Americans.
3:13
Like I, I find I can actually talk to Americans like we have, well basically all
3:17
American clients at Social Commerce Club.
3:20
All of my consulting that I do, it's all American brands
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and for some reason I think it's this outside the Jar approach, right.
3:26
That you can see because I will see I've, I've had.
3:29
American copywriters try and work for Canadian brands before,
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and I'm like, no, no, we don't.
3:35
We don't go for that.
3:36
We don't like go for those.
3:37
No, we don't go for those little tricks.
3:39
Right.
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Versus like, you know, you and I grew up watching faulty towers.
3:43
Right?
3:43
Like we
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yes.
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That's so true.
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Yeah.
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Yeah,
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Right.
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And like, like think about like the greatest comedies of all time.
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Canadian and British.
3:52
Right.
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And the comedians of our day.
3:54
Right?
3:55
Like, like look at Schitt's Creek, right?
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For so long, right?
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This was like a Canadian show on CBC, our little funny channel that we have, right?
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And like we all watch Schitt's Creek 'cause we're like, oh, this is hilarious.
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And then the rest of the world sees it and it's like, oh, this is brilliant.
4:10
I don't exactly know what it is.
4:12
This is something I actually wanna do a documentary on you.
4:14
You asked, oh, what are you up to these days?
4:15
That's another thing.
4:16
I wanna raise money for a documentary.
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On why there's so many outsized, there should be 10 x the amount
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of funny Americans as there are Canadians, but there's not, the
4:28
amount of famous Canadians that are comedians is just crazy.
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Um, and I think it's very similar for, for the British.
4:35
So anyway, big rant to say I'm pumped to talk about e-commerce today.
4:39
Yeah, that's absolutely.
4:41
And comedy.
4:42
We should just do the comedy podcast.
4:44
Yeah.
4:44
Do you know a chap called Peter Murphy?
4:46
Lewis?
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Oh man, sounds so familiar.
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And I, I'm, I'm, I'm blanking.
4:52
Not to put you on the spot, but,
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um, Peter is brilliant at the whole documentary type stuff and he, um, he,
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he helps, he, he makes documentaries specifically about nursing homes and
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puts 'em on LinkedIn and, um, puts a story on LinkedIn and he, he just,
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Peter just fascinates me with the way that he thinks and, and stuff.
5:12
So he, you don't want him to do a documentary connect with Peter because
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he would be an interesting chap to talk
5:17
Well, you heard it here first, folks.
5:19
yeah, yeah.
5:20
when you see this happening and coming together, it's gonna be like, oh.
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It just happened here.
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So let's talk about e-commerce Jordan, 'cause that's what
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we do first and foremost.
5:30
Um, social Commerce club.
5:31
Let's talk about that.
5:33
That's what you do.
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You've got your agency.
5:35
Let's give people a little bit background about you.
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'cause this is the second time you've been on the show from memory or the
5:40
third.
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It.
5:40
is.
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And it was a long time ago, Matt, like you and I met a long
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and we met through your podcast.
5:47
Yeah.
5:47
We did.
5:47
Um.
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So there was a time actually where I was growing a previous agency.
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It was called Mindful Marketing.
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And I, I was growing that agency and here were the two ways that I grew it.
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I went on podcasts and I had people on my podcasts and I would have
6:02
like multiple people and I would just have brands come on, right?
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And that's how I grew.
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And then I would go, because I owned brands and I would go
6:09
on other people's podcasts.
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And so I'm sure I just reached out to you.
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I think I went on something like a hundred podcasts in one year and it was crazy.
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The amount.
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Of conversations that I had and the amount of just like, just
6:21
incredible, um, insight that I was able to gather from, from both sides.
6:27
And so that's really where we met.
6:28
And, and you know, from there, there was a couple iterations of the agency.
6:32
I'm gonna be honest with you guys.
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I hate running an agency.
6:36
I hate having
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and me both, bro.
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You and me both.
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I like, I, you know, Friday I had to have this emergency meeting with my team
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because somebody on our team was stealing.
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Like, I'm like, how?
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Like you are and, and of course it was an American, of course.
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You know, it's like only times I've ever been sued Americans.
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We would never do that.
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You know?
6:59
yeah.
7:00
No, we'll just have a conversation and just like normal people would.
7:03
Yeah.
7:03
Exactly.
7:03
You'd just be like, oh, hey, should we just talk about it?
7:06
Like, so, so I, I don't love, so what I love is growing something and, and.
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Envisioning something and then handing it off to people.
7:19
What I don't like is the one to 10, right.
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I love zero to one.
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So my team hates me because I'm always coming up with new things.
7:26
Right.
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And new, new ways to go.
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And so this social commerce club was an iteration of that, right.
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And what I saw was a new way that people shop and, and I'll tell you how I saw it.
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I watched my wife on her phone and I watched her scrolling.
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And I watched the steps that she would take while scrolling reels to then go
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over and straight to go buy things.
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And I was like, this is really interesting.
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And then I saw her on TikTok and I saw the same thing happening and I was
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like, oh, this is that on steroids.
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Then I started to watch other people on TikTok and the way that they were
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interacting, and I always thought to myself, why is TikTok so ridiculously
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bad at converting customers?
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Right?
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Because we, we all know from post, sorry, not from post purchase
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survey, from attribution, right?
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It's, it's virtually a zero.
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Like you can get, maybe get a one return on ad spend on TikTok maybe, right?
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Like with, with e-comm, it's very, very difficult.
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When TikTok shop came around, I thought, okay, this is kind of interesting.
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And at first when people told me about it, I was like, well, this is just, this is
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just like meta shops like big deal, right?
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Like one other place for people to check out.
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This does not change the game until I realized what they were doing.
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And when I realized that influencers on the platform, which I'm now going
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to from now on call creators, right?
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We're gonna call them creators, not influencers.
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I think they're like salespeople on the platform when they're incentivized
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to get, uh, they're incentivized to make a sale on the platform.
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I realized, oh my gosh.
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Affiliate marketing is finally here in e-comm, right?
9:08
Because previously affiliate marketing just didn't really work in e-comm
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in the same sort of way, right?
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Like the, the attribution was so bad that it just didn't
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follow in the same sort of way.
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And I realized, oh my gosh, this, this changes everything.
9:24
Yeah, it's um.
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It is interesting listening to you talk about, number one, I'm not a big
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fan of running agencies myself, right?
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So I just don't do it.
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Uh, just let, let other people do that.
9:34
I used to be the zero to one guy.
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Um, but I don't do that anymore.
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Um, I'm much better at helping companies.
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Who are already well established.
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Do you know what I mean?
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And,
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and I'd, so we've started doing this whole acquisition thing.
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Um, so we'd, there's some big announcements come in.
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Some companies we've, we've, uh, one company in particular we, we've sort
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of acquired recently and, and, and, and, and invested in, which is great.
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So it's, it's interesting listening to the evolution of this, and I'm,
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I'm smiling because I just couldn't.
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You are watching your wife shop on TikTok.
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I don't even know if my wife knows what TikTok is.
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Right.
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So
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I think that just might be an age thing.
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I think you're a younger family than we are.
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Um, but I, I, I get what you're saying about affiliate marketing
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because apart from the, the outliers, you know, there's always a story
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of one person that did really well,
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you know, and every affiliate software company tells you that story and
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you think, well, I'm gonna kill it.
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And it's, it can be quite tricky.
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I'm curious.
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Um, then what you have, because this is going back to what you said about
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LinkedIn, a lot of what you post on LinkedIn is about killing it with, um,
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TikTok shop, um, social commerce is, you know, your social commerce club
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connected to that, changing it from, uh, to, to creators rather than influencers.
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are you seeing?
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So, here's the crazy thing that I'm seeing, right?
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Number one, so we work with a lot of big brands, right?
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So a lot of household names, uh, out there who are trying
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to get onto social commerce.
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Now, one of the main reasons that we are doing that is, is
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we're at Social Commerce Club.
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We just happen to be the adults in the room, right?
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There's a lot of agencies out there that sprung up from people who understood
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TikTok but didn't understand business.
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And so that was really difficult, right?
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For a lot of, a lot of brands got burned by some small agencies and, uh, and not
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saying that, that these, some of these young guys couldn't do it, but it just
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wasn't the same as them coming to us.
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I think that the other thing too that we saw is everyone on Amazon wanted to
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hop onto TikTok shop because they're like, oh, this is the next big thing.
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The problem was the Amazon people actually didn't do very well because
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Amazon is a demand capture channel.
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TikTok shop is a demand gen channel, right?
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And so us that were in direct to consumer and started in direct to consumer.
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And remember, my brands that I've owned over the years are all
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basically in apparel and accessories.
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Right.
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Apparel and accessories in D two C is playing on hard mode.
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I, I never really realized until, until I, I went and played in some other
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industries and I was like, oh man, it'd be so nice to be able to do problem solution.
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Like, I would love that apparel and accessories do not do problem solution.
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That is not how it works.
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And so what, what I, what I realized is that TikTok shop.
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Was this whole new demand generation channel, and it was finally the way that
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we could create some virality around products and test products in the market.
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Now, I, I wanna talk about one, one brand specifically
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here, and this is a shoe brand.
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They came to us like about, you know, what was a little, little less than
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a year ago, they came to us, zero searches on the platform, right?
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This is a very well known shoe brand.
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Just so you guys know, like billion dollar brand.
12:48
Yeah.
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They had zero searches on the platform whatsoever.
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They came to us and they said, Hey, look.
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We know you guys have this crawl, walk, run sort of approach.
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We just wanna run.
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We're like, okay, we can do that.
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Here's the budget.
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Right?
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And so we, you know, it was like a seven figure budget.
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We're like, this is what we're gonna have to do.
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And so we did, and we absolutely ran, and they went from zero searches.
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I think we started with them in August.
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It ended up being, and they went from zero searches to, in a two week period
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in December, 800,000 searches on TikTok.
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Wow.
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So think about that, right?
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They unlocked this entire new generation, right?
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This, these were boomer shoes, just so you guys know before, right?
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And they locked this entirely new generation.
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And on top of that, we were just testing a bunch of different shoe styles, right?
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So we would, we would sample out these different shoe styles to creators and
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just see what they did with them, right?
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Basically eliminating, this is the crazy thing, Matt, right?
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Completely eliminating the need for them to do any research because you,
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you seed the product out there and then see what people do with it.
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And so there, there was one shoe in particular that they, that
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they thought was just a dog.
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And they're like, yeah, sure.
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Go ahead and sample it out.
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What ended up selling?
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It ended up completely selling out because it went viral on TikTok shop.
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Lo and behold, they ended up doing a collab with Sydnee
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Sweeney after on that shoe.
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And Sydnee Sweeney is, you know, having her her day.
14:16
Right.
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And it, it was just incredible.
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So like, it went from like nothing.
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To Sydney Sweeney level, which I think would kind of be at the peak
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of, of pop culture right now, right?
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That's how insane TikTok shop is and how, how much power there is in TikTok shop.
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Now, the reason why I think that shop in particular is very interesting is because
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people, the, the kinds of posts that people make are about the product, right?
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There's no like.
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This is not like general brand influencer marketing.
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I have always hated working with influencers.
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I'm gonna be honest with you.
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Like the majority of influencers I just hate working with because it's
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very like, you know, mean and a bikini, like having this thing here, right?
14:56
Like, oh, here's the product, right?
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But really what you're selling is your bikini, you know, like, or your body.
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And that to me just isn't, isn't great marketing versus TikTok shop.
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I will tell you.
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These people are trying to sell the product, right?
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I call it the MLM, the multi-level marketing of our generation, right?
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Because these people, all that they are incentivized to do is sell the product.
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And so what they have to do is get really, really creative and start to
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think like, okay, what is gonna work?
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And sometimes, sometimes it has to be non-salesy and sometimes they just
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kind of slip it in, or sometimes they tell a long story meandering and then
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be like, Hey, by the way, if you like this, click the link in my, in my.
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Here on this TikTok.
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Um, that's why it's so cool that like, that's why I'm obsessed with it.
15:44
Yeah.
15:44
And it's, it's, it is crazy, isn't it?
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That this is what's happening.
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But I'm curious, Jordan, I, I mean, I love hearing your stories and I, I, I
15:53
love the stories that you tell on TikTok.
15:55
Um, how do I, how do I think about TikTok, Ben, if I'm not
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a billion dollar shoe brand?
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That knows Sydney and has got seven figures to spend.
16:06
Um, is this something that is purely reserved for the billion dollar brands
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or is this something actually with very little money you can actually
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do some really interesting things?
16:17
So it's both, right?
16:19
So the reason I bring up big brands is because big brands are
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actually the ones that are scared to go on the platform, right?
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They're really scared that they're going to get that.
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There's.
16:27
Yeah, that, that there's gonna be content out there, right?
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The big brands are really scared that there's gonna be content out
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there that they don't approve of, and they wanna approve everything.
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The problem is they can't, right?
16:36
Like if there's any marketing execs listening to this, it's like.
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In the world of social commerce, you cannot approve everything, right?
16:42
You need to be okay with people going out there and holding your product and
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saying some things about it, right?
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It's just, it's just the way, it's Matt.
16:50
Let's talk about smaller brands, because I think that's where things
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get really, really interesting.
16:54
So let's talk about what it was like before to seed product.
16:59
Okay, so this is what seeding looked like before.
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I'm going to randomly reach out to a bunch of influencers, right,
17:07
using whatever tools are out there.
17:10
Um, you know, Shopify collabs is one.
17:13
Uh, social snowball is another one.
17:15
Um, ral.
17:16
Um, these are good, these are great tools that are out there, right?
17:20
Uh, the problem is I'm going to randomly reach out to these people.
17:23
Mm-hmm.
17:24
Right that I don't have any sort of connection with and are not
17:27
incentivized whatsoever to post for me and say, Hey, can I send you a gift?
17:31
Mm-hmm.
17:32
And then you send them a gift and you're like one of a hundred people
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that are sending them a gift.
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They have no reason to post for you.
17:39
Right.
17:40
Nor do they even have like, if anything, here's what you're gonna get.
17:43
You're gonna get like, oh my gosh, thanks so much.
17:47
Blank blank, whatever your, your brand is, thanks so much
17:50
for sending this over to me.
17:51
Um, and it's gonna be in their Instagram story and like 50 people are gonna see it,
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right?
17:57
That's about as much as you're going to get from, from an influencer.
18:00
And then what you can do after that is start following up and trying to
18:03
nurture them and, and all of that, right?
18:06
So that's, that's what seeding was like before and, and still is, right?
18:11
Like there's still a lot of
18:12
Still can be that way.
18:13
Yeah.
18:13
Yeah, yeah.
18:14
A absolutely.
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And I'm not saying that that's terrible.
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I think that there's some really, there's some ways that work a lot better, right?
18:21
Uh, I'm, I am all about building relationships, like actual relationships
18:25
with people in that and white listing and all of that kind of stuff.
18:27
But that's this side.
18:29
Now let's talk about what that looks like on TikTok shop.
18:31
Well, on TikTok shop each.
18:34
Uh, each creator has to, they're incentivized to post for you, not
18:39
just because they're making money, but because if they don't post for
18:42
you, it goes against their score.
18:45
Right.
18:45
As a creator.
18:47
Right.
18:47
And so when we go to reach out to creators, we're only reaching
18:50
out to creators who have an 80% plus fulfillment rate.
18:54
So that means eight out of 10 packages that they get, they make content for.
18:58
We're always aiming for every, every sample that we send out to get five
19:03
pieces of content out of them as well.
19:05
Right?
19:06
So think about that, right?
19:07
These are real.
19:09
Life videos, TikTok videos that are going out there that have
19:14
the chance of virality, right.
19:16
That are going out that we know that eight out of 10 of them for
19:19
sure we're going to get right.
19:21
Whereas like usually it's nine outta 10, right?
19:23
That we're, that we're actually getting that many videos.
19:25
But we could, for those 10 samples, potentially get between 40 and 50 videos.
19:30
That's the wild thing, right?
19:31
We're getting that many, that many potential pieces of content that is
19:35
like, that is life altering for a brand.
19:38
When they can get that many pieces of content, then we use
19:41
other tools out there, right?
19:42
So there's some great social listening tools.
19:44
I love Funnel, um, for this.
19:46
So funnel then comes and takes all of that content.
19:49
It does the social listening and it finds, and it's one of the only
19:53
ones that can actually capture TikTok shop content for some reason.
19:57
Don't ask me why.
19:57
I have no idea.
19:58
I'm not a technical guy, nor do I want to be.
20:00
Um, every time I think about like I'm gonna start a software
20:05
company and I'm like, no I'm not.
20:06
No, no, no, I'm not.
20:08
done that.
20:08
You don't want to do that?
20:09
Yeah, yeah.
20:09
Just move on.
20:10
Yeah.
20:12
Um.
20:12
For,
20:13
But, uh, uh, all of that aside, um, what FU does is it actually listens
20:18
for that content and then you can actually download that content now.
20:21
Well, what we do at Social Commerce Club is very, very sneaky.
20:25
When somebody becomes a, an influencer in Social Commerce club, or sorry, a
20:29
creator, I dunno why I said the I word
20:31
yeah,
20:32
Um, when they.
20:32
to go.
20:34
When they become, uh, a creator, uh, WIS with Social Commerce Club, we actually
20:38
ask them if we have permission to use any of their content across other channels.
20:43
The majority of them say Yes, so we can then download that piece of content
20:47
and use it wherever we want, as long as they've given us permission to do that.
20:51
So that's why we win at Social Commerce Club because we can then take that
20:54
content and we try to work with all the brands that we work with.
20:58
And the way that we've set our pricing up at Social Commerce Club is that we, we.
21:01
We incentivize them to work with us on all channels, right?
21:04
Not just TikTok shop, because we really believe that TikTok shop is a, is an
21:09
integrated platform with all of it.
21:11
It's an incredible awareness channel, the best awareness channel that you can
21:14
possibly have right now for a small brand.
21:18
Right?
21:19
So that's what I'm obsessed with right now when it comes to social commerce.
21:24
It is really interesting, isn't it?
21:25
And I.
21:28
There is something about TikTok.
21:30
I mean it being constantly in the press because of our American friends
21:34
and, and you know, the Chinese connection and all that sort of thing.
21:38
Um, there is something about TikTok, wait, you don't have to have any real
21:45
major followers and you can post a video and 2000 people will see it.
21:49
Whereas if I post a reel on my personal Instagram account.
21:52
A hundred people might, 200 people do.
21:54
I mean, it seems
21:55
that tiktoks has, at this moment in time, they have totally captured, um, help.
22:03
I, I don't, I dunno how they do it and how and why Instagram
22:06
don't, Do you know what I mean?
22:07
I don't understand why you don't get the same sort of impact on
22:11
Instagram that you get on TikTok.
22:12
There's something about that algorithm, there's something about that audience
22:15
who is, who are watching those videos.
22:17
Well, it's the point.
22:18
It's the point of the platform, right?
22:19
Like, like Instagram is still a follower driven.
22:22
Algorithm.
22:24
Right?
22:24
And so it still is using your followers as part of that algorithm.
22:27
Now you can get virality on Instagram, right?
22:30
Like it used to be where you, you would never even be able to
22:32
show up in somebody else's feed.
22:34
Somebody had to follow you to be able to see you.
22:36
Um, whereas now things are, it's more of like a half and half versus.
22:40
TikTok is a fully content driven algorithm.
22:43
Let, let me tell you just like a quick story here.
22:45
One of our creators, uh, at Social Commerce Club, she has less than
22:50
10,000 followers and she generated $250,000 for a brand last month.
22:58
Less than 10,000 followers.
22:59
Like that is wild.
23:01
She's probably making 15 to 20% commission on that.
23:04
Just do the math.
23:06
It's wild what these creators are making comparatively, right?
23:09
And people are like, well do their, do their followers wanna
23:12
see sales content all the time?
23:14
It's like, doesn't matter.
23:16
She doesn't care, she doesn't have followers.
23:19
She's just selling stuff online and doing a really, really good job of it.
23:23
Yeah.
23:24
Yeah.
23:24
That's really interesting.
23:25
So in effect, there's two i there's two route we could go down almost, isn't it?
23:29
I could, I can hear my teenage daughter saying, Matt, uh, dad, dad, ask
23:33
Jordan how I become a creator, right?
23:36
And there's the, there's all the other people listening to the
23:38
show going, well, this is great.
23:40
So how do I, how do I get started with this?
23:43
If I, I mean, I know people have been talking about it, it's
23:45
probably the question I get asked.
23:48
More than any other question about marketing at the moment
23:52
is how do I do TikTok shop?
23:54
And to be honest with you, Jordan, I just go, listen, this is, this
23:56
is a guy he needs to talk to.
23:57
Here's Jordan's number.
23:58
Just, you know, just uh, follow him on LinkedIn and, and
24:01
connect and see what goes on.
24:03
I was talking to a pharmaceutical company.
24:05
Uh, two weekends ago, they're like, I think we're gonna try and do TikTok shop.
24:08
I'm like, have you got a budget?
24:09
And they're like, yeah.
24:09
I'm like, go give Jordan a ring because I don't think you know what you're doing.
24:15
Just listening to them talk.
24:16
I mean, bless them.
24:18
But it's, it's one of those where
24:22
it's in everybody's minds.
24:24
But I think if, I still think a lot of people are confused
24:29
by it, if that makes sense.
24:31
Like where, where do people actually start with TikTok shop?
24:35
It's a, it's a new muscle, right?
24:37
It's a new muscle that they're exercising.
24:38
It is nothing like.
24:40
Facebook ads, right?
24:42
So first of all, uh, but before I tell you sort of like where to
24:45
start, what I wanna tell you is the massive amount of mistakes.
24:49
That we have made right when it comes to TikTok shop, and this is why I think that
24:53
we succeed when it comes to this, right?
24:55
And, and actually understanding what this channel is exactly.
24:58
So I've been using this analogy a lot lately, uh, of a Roomba, um, in business.
25:03
And the reason why is because we are working with iRobot, uh, and with
25:07
Roomba, uh, which is really fun.
25:09
And so when they came to us, I was like, oh, yeah.
25:11
And I, I was thinking about this analogy, so I got a Roomba, um, because I was like.
25:16
I dunno.
25:16
I just wanted one.
25:17
After they, they, we had a meeting with them and I was watching the
25:21
Roomba in the, uh, the way that it maps, uh, uh, a, a place, right?
25:26
The way that it maps a house and all of it does is it just
25:30
like keeps hitting into things,
25:32
right?
25:32
It's like, oh, not there.
25:33
Oh, not there.
25:34
Oh, not there.
25:35
Not there.
25:35
Oh, perfect.
25:36
We're gonna go here.
25:37
In business, the best founders are Roombas.
25:41
Right.
25:42
They are the ones that are, that are like, oh, that didn't work.
25:44
That didn't work, that didn't work.
25:45
That didn't work.
25:46
You cannot have ego if you are a Roomba,
25:49
you can't, you have to like get rid of your ego.
25:52
And so if you're gonna onto to TikTok shop, you have to get rid of
25:55
your ego because 99% of the things that you do are not going to work.
25:59
Even if you work with some of the biggest creators that are
26:01
out there that are producing all this money, it might not work.
26:04
Right?
26:05
And then most people give up and so.
26:08
What it is, is it's the reps that you're putting in.
26:10
And so let, let me, let me start and I'm gonna give you like a
26:13
really simple framework to use here.
26:15
So number one, right?
26:17
You need to get samples out there into the hands of creators, right?
26:22
And I'm
26:22
you charging creators for the samples or are you sending them free?
26:25
no, you are sending them free at first.
26:27
You have zero leverage at first.
26:29
I don't care if you're Nike, you have zero leverage.
26:33
Like the creators until you have GMV on your store.
26:37
So until you have sales on your store and specifically on the SKUs that
26:41
you're sending out, creators don't care because their only thing that
26:44
they want, they don't wanna look cool.
26:46
They're not influencers.
26:47
They just wanna make money on your product.
26:49
They wanna know, is this a product that I can sell a ton of if I can, awesome.
26:53
Right?
26:54
Like the amount of supplement brands that go on there that people are like,
26:56
well, I can't sell the supplement.
26:58
Right.
26:59
If they see that other people have Right, have purchased the supplement,
27:02
then they're more likely to take that sample and be like, okay, well I'm gonna
27:05
make at least one video out of this.
27:07
Right.
27:07
Again, our goal is five at SEC, so like we're trying to get as much out there
27:12
as as much content out there as we can.
27:14
So my recommendation is to sample 200 samples in the first
27:18
Mm-hmm.
27:19
So the reason being it is the 80 20.
27:23
Of the 80 20.
27:23
And so let me explain exactly how the math works, right?
27:26
So we're gonna send out.
27:27
200 samples.
27:28
Actually, let's go with a hundred just so I can do the 80 20 really simply here.
27:32
So, so we're gonna send a hundred samples, right?
27:35
So for every a hundred samples, 20 of them, 80 of the videos
27:39
are going to be garbage.
27:41
Yep.
27:42
80 of those people, you're just like, they're not gonna talk to again.
27:46
20 of them are gonna do something right?
27:48
They're gonna drive a meaningful amount of traffic, they're gonna drive
27:53
a meaningful amount of something.
27:55
I'm not saying revenue yet.
27:57
Out of those 20, we're gonna take the 80 20 of those.
28:00
Now that's down to four, right?
28:01
If I, if I did my math
28:03
you did.
28:03
Yeah, we're good.
28:04
and four of those are going to potentially go viral and produce a ton of sales.
28:10
Of those four, you're probably gonna have one that is going
28:13
to be the absolute winner.
28:15
Okay.
28:17
but maybe not.
28:18
And so maybe you have to actually go to the next a hundred, right?
28:20
This is why I recommend 200 a month for the first while.
28:23
And so that's a lot of samples out there, right?
28:26
And the way that I mitigate against the idea of like, oh, man,
28:29
that's a ton of samples, is you're going to get a ton of content.
28:31
And so making sure that you ask for rights to that content right away
28:35
is really, really important so that you can use it across channels.
28:38
Um, I like to think of TikTok.
28:42
As a Rubicon, right?
28:44
So a Rubicon is a door that you can go through one way,
28:47
but you can't go back through,
28:49
right?
28:50
And so tiktoks content can go anywhere.
28:53
It can go to Snapchat, it can go to YouTube shorts, it
28:55
can go to Instagram, right?
28:56
It can go to Pinterest, but their content can't go onto TikTok.
29:01
If you've ever tried launching Instagram content on TikTok,
29:05
you'll realize it doesn't work.
29:08
Right.
29:08
Whereas tiktoks content can kind of go anywhere, which is why, again,
29:11
I'm obsessed with TikTok content.
29:13
I would say the only content that I'm, that I'm as equally obsessed with right
29:17
now is Creator ad reads on YouTube.
29:20
Right?
29:21
These are like the opposite end of it, right?
29:24
So this is like the the high end social commerce, right?
29:27
Where it's like, Hey, we want to pay for Mr. Beast, right?
29:30
To, to do an ad read an in platform ad read versus.
29:35
These smaller creators over here, and this is why I love the
29:38
entire spectrum of all of it.
29:39
Um, it's just very interesting to me.
29:41
So, uh, yeah.
29:43
So that's where you get started, right?
29:45
Um.
29:46
The, the problem is, at first your listing is probably not gonna convert
29:51
because you need to understand the pricing.
29:53
You need to understand where exactly you are, where are your competitors?
29:57
How are you going to differentiate?
29:58
What's your image stack look like right?
30:01
At first, just use your Amazon image stack, but that's probably not gonna
30:04
cut it at the end of the day, right?
30:06
Um, there's a lot that goes into it, Matt.
30:09
No, it sounds like a, a, a real big site.
30:11
Do you use software to help you or are you doing this all in a Google sheet?
30:15
Yeah, so we use, we use multiple different software.
30:17
So I'll, I'll shout out a few of them.
30:19
So Cdata is a really good one.
30:21
Cdata or Fast Moss?
30:23
I don't have an allegiance to either one of those.
30:25
Um, CDATA is, uh, going to help you find all of your competitors, right?
30:29
And understand sort of like what people are doing out in the space.
30:32
Um.
30:33
Reacher, uh, is my bot of choice.
30:35
Um, so they're a CRM, an AI powered CRM for TikTok shop.
30:41
Uh, so there is a lot of manual work.
30:43
Um, we use Reacher on every single account.
30:46
Reacher has some really cool AI integrations as well.
30:48
I just happen to be an advisor of them as well, um, and love them.
30:51
So everything that I tell them to build, they build.
30:54
Mm-hmm.
30:55
And, uh, and really, really enjoy what they're doing over there.
30:59
Um, so those are definitely like the two big ones that, that we are using.
31:02
And then I have to say a ton of what we're doing is we, we don't
31:07
use sheets, but we use Airtable.
31:08
Um, the reason why we love Airtable, uh, specifically is that Airtable, you
31:13
can build so much AI off of Airtable.
31:16
Yeah, I can.
31:17
It like if you guys are not like, if there's agency people in here, just stop
31:21
everything you're doing and go build on Airtable because this is the future.
31:25
Like everything plugs into Airtable as well.
31:27
Like it's this beautiful central hub of all of your info and um, yeah,
31:32
def definitely recommend Airtable.
31:34
Yeah, I, I've been playing around.
31:36
This is not related to anything.
31:37
Jordan, I, you may or may not found this interesting at all.
31:40
Uh, I've been playing around with Airtable and N eight N Have you come across,
31:46
is it N eight?
31:47
Is it eight N eight?
31:48
No.
31:48
N
31:48
eight 10, isn't it?
31:49
Dot io?
31:49
Yeah.
31:49
Yeah.
31:50
That thing is insane.
31:52
Yes, yes.
31:52
So there's a lot like that out there too.
31:55
Like there's a ton of these different apps that are, that
31:57
are helping build agents, right?
31:59
Like these agentic apps.
32:00
Um.
32:01
But you have to have a source of truth somewhere, right?
32:03
You have to have a source of all of your data somewhere.
32:05
That's why Airtable is so good, because you're like, where?
32:08
Exactly.
32:09
Like, like you can get it to build all this stuff, but unless you've
32:12
got the data, it's kind of hard.
32:14
Yeah.
32:15
Yeah.
32:15
Super true.
32:16
Super true.
32:17
No, I very much a fan.
32:19
Very much a fan.
32:20
And even for a Luddite like me, I can get my head around it, which is quite helpful.
32:25
I am becoming more of a Luddite these days.
32:27
Matt, like I use this app called Opal on my phone that blocks basically
32:33
every app that I love to use.
32:35
Um, and then I also put my phone to, uh, grayscale throughout the day.
32:39
So like even on business days, I don't have Slack.
32:42
I can't get into Slack, I can't get into like anything on my phone.
32:46
LinkedIn, nothing.
32:48
And so I have to come to my computer if I wanna do something because
32:52
it was just, it was just becoming too much.
32:53
I was like,
32:54
It just sucks your life out the yeah.
32:55
Yeah.
32:56
yeah.
32:56
Like who wants to do that?
32:57
Like, like Matt, you and I are old enough to remember the days when like you just
33:02
picked up the phone and called someone and you had to go out, you know, you had to
33:06
go and see people and liking their posts on Instagram was not equivalent to you
33:12
actually, you know, being their friend.
33:15
Yeah,
33:17
heaven forbid.
33:18
It's, um, no, it is totally just, totally true, isn't it?
33:21
I, Sharon and I, we went camping this weekend.
33:24
My wife and I went, glam the first time I'd ever done glamping.
33:28
Oh, okay.
33:29
Nice.
33:29
loved it.
33:30
Absolutely loved it.
33:31
Big shout out to the guys, James and Sarah at Lonning, who, who, who set us up.
33:35
They're amazing company.
33:36
If you're in the UK and you need a bell tent that connects to
33:38
your van, go check out Lonning.
33:40
Just quick shout out to them.
33:40
They're awesome.
33:42
Um, but yeah, we, we, we went over to this festival and I felt very old.
33:48
I felt like I, I bought the average age up and it was, do you know what was lovely?
33:54
Um.
33:55
Jordan was they?
33:56
They had this stage called forest school and all the young families, all
34:01
the kids were in there like with axes and learning how to build campfires.
34:05
Not a single one of them had a mobile phone, not a single one of them was
34:09
trying to Snapchat their friends or capture content for Instagram.
34:14
I mean, these are 8-year-old kids, maybe 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, kind of eight.
34:18
But it was lovely to see.
34:19
They just weren't on the phones.
34:20
They were actually outside just doing fun stuff.
34:23
I, uh, I was out with my kids, um, 'cause I let my, my kids roam free a lot and
34:28
they were up a tree and they were up like, I don't know, 20 or 30 feet up a tree.
34:32
And there was this, this old couple that walked by.
34:36
And he's like, I am so happy to see your kids up so high in the tree.
34:39
He's like, you know what?
34:40
We don't see enough of these days broken arms.
34:43
so true.
34:44
Yeah.
34:44
He's like, we just don't, there's not enough broken arms, which
34:46
tells me kids aren't trying.
34:48
Right.
34:48
And if anyone's read the anxious generation, just every parent
34:52
must read the anxious generation.
34:54
And I think you'll parent differently.
34:55
Like I, I saw a kid at my daughter's school the other day.
34:58
She's in grade four.
35:00
Grade four or five, something like that.
35:01
She had a phone and I was like, in five years, that is going to be the equivalent
35:06
of her having a cigarette in her mouth.
35:07
It is that harmful.
35:09
Like I was like, get off your phone.
35:10
Get off like, mom, do you not realize the damage that you're doing with this girl?
35:14
And lo and behold, she's the one who has like the biggest attitude, right?
35:18
And I'm like, well, chicken or egg, because poor girl has to defend
35:22
herself against all of this stuff
35:24
Oh
35:24
at her online,
35:25
Mm-hmm.
35:26
right?
35:26
Like I, I will refuse for my kids to have screens before they're 16.
35:30
I just refuse it.
35:31
I'm like, I don't care.
35:33
I don't care if all the kids make fun of you in school.
35:35
It doesn't matter.
35:35
It's not gonna be nearly as.
35:37
Detrimental as you being on social media.
35:40
I, I have like zero doubt that we're gonna look back on this time
35:44
of, of this, all this experiment that we're doing and be like, oh,
35:49
this is why no one's having kids.
35:52
Right?
35:53
This is why our like, like no one's happy and we've never seen such like
35:58
SSRI use and all of this stuff, right?
36:00
Like, of course.
36:03
No, I'm, I'm with you, bro.
36:04
I think recently the Australian government banned mobile phones
36:08
and they for, um, kids under 16.
36:12
Um, oh, no, no.
36:13
They didn't ban mobile phones.
36:14
They, they, social media I think is
36:16
Fan social media.
36:17
Okay.
36:17
Yeah,
36:18
Until you're 16.
36:19
And I think Well, good on you because
36:21
I think it's coming everywhere.
36:22
yeah, I, think it has
36:23
it has to.
36:25
It does.
36:25
We sound like the two grumpy old men from the Muppets.
36:28
And we, as we, as we should, as we should, maybe they had,
36:32
maybe they knew more than we
36:33
Maybe they had a point.
36:34
Yeah,
36:36
starting to like them actually.
36:38
Yay.
36:39
More and more.
36:40
We should go back, bring back the, the wisdom of the grumpy old men.
36:43
Uh, and I love that.
36:46
Um.
36:47
Jordan, listen, if people wanna find out more about the social commerce
36:50
club, maybe connect with that.
36:52
Um, figure out if it's a good fit for them.
36:54
What, what's the, what's the, what's the plan there?
36:58
So they can go to socialcommerceclub.com or, uh, even better, they can
37:02
reach out to me on LinkedIn.
37:03
Now I try to be good in my inbox on LinkedIn.
37:07
I do try to check every message, but sometimes I look and they look spammy, so
37:10
then I, then I don't actually open them.
37:13
The problem is.
37:14
Sometimes they're actually great messages and I go back later because
37:18
they're like, Hey, just following up.
37:19
And I'm like, oh yeah, another sales follow up.
37:21
And I look and I was like, oh, you're a great brand that wants to work with us.
37:24
Yeah.
37:24
Yeah.
37:25
Awesome.
37:25
Um, so, uh, try me on LinkedIn too, but, uh, or you, or you can even just reach
37:30
out at jordan@socialcommerceclub.com.
37:32
Um, that is my email address as well.
37:34
So,
37:35
um, yeah, see if, see if we're we're a fit, we're, you know,
37:39
obsessed with all things.
37:41
Again, we come at this from a D two C perspective, right?
37:44
D two C first because D two C is all about demand gen, right?
37:47
Demand generation is so much harder than demand capture.
37:51
Um.
37:52
But we've all seen what happens with Amazon brands when that's
37:54
all that they have, right?
37:55
Is this capture of not a huge market and um, yeah,
38:00
I think it's a painful road, but that's just me.
38:02
Uh, it's the reason why I don't acquire or invest in, uh,
38:06
Amazon, pure Amazon businesses.
38:08
Uh,
38:08
there's better people out there that do it than me.
38:10
I never did either when I was doing acquisitions yet.
38:12
Yeah, just not a fan.
38:14
Not a fan.
38:15
Um, and tell us a little for those that maybe are new to the show and didn't
38:19
hear the very first episode that we did.
38:21
Um, I don't even think TikTok was, I don't even know if mobile phones were a
38:25
thing when we did our first recording.
38:26
Jordan.
38:27
I don't even know if we did.
38:28
I think we did that one in person.
38:30
I think I flew to the UK for that
38:32
Yeah, I think we did with a, with Agram phone in the middle and someone
38:35
was, didn't have to record in it.
38:39
Um, tell us a bit about your podcast.
38:42
People might wanna come Listen,
38:44
yes.
38:44
I.
38:44
listen to it.
38:45
I'm, I'm one of your regulars.
38:46
Oh, you are.
38:47
Oh, thank you, Matt.
38:48
Thank you.
38:48
You know, I'm always surprised when I look and see our download numbers and
38:52
because I have done this podcast for so many years that, uh, it's, I think
38:56
we're close to episode 650 right now.
38:59
And, um, it's funny, you'll, for anyone who's listened to it
39:03
for a while, it's called Secrecy Scaling, or e-Commerce brand.
39:05
Um, we just hit a million downloads, which is fun.
39:07
Um, I know after 650 episodes you're probably doing the math and being
39:11
like, wow, it's not that good,
39:12
It's for each episode, but well done.
39:14
Yeah.
39:17
Um, but I have, I have now been, uh, putting them out on YouTube
39:21
finally, which is hilarious 'cause I always had video content.
39:23
I just didn't ever put it out on YouTube.
39:25
And we're getting like thousands of views in episode, which is really fun.
39:28
And, um, and it's, it's just great to see.
39:31
I'm, what I'm trying to do, I'm actually doing a new thing right now.
39:34
Uh, and they're called, it's part of Secrecy Scaling Your eCommmerce brand,
39:38
but I'm releasing my first one this week.
39:39
It's called eCommerce os Fast Track Sessions.
39:42
I am, uh, the first time I'm serving smaller eCommerce
39:46
brands right at our agency.
39:47
It's really difficult to do.
39:49
We just, we can't resource it properly, the costing and all of that.
39:52
And so, uh, I am launching a new program called eCommerce Os.
39:56
You can go check it out at eCommerce os.co.
39:59
Um, and I'm launching this new program and so alongside of it, I'm doing
40:03
these shorter episodes where I bring an E-commerce founder on and I consult with
40:08
them for 20 minutes and we solve one big problem, and it has been so much fun.
40:13
Every single time.
40:14
So the first one, a guy came on who's running a brand for Selena Gomez.
40:18
Um, and he is just having a huge issue besides when SEL
40:23
posts going from zero to one.
40:25
Right?
40:25
And, and so we talked through the strategy because it's, it, it's an, uh, an ice
40:30
cream brand and so they can't ship.
40:33
So it can't be direct to consumer.
40:34
They can't do TikTok shop.
40:37
So we just talk through what to do and, uh, and so it's very consultative
40:42
and I'm having a blast doing it.
40:44
And, uh, it is definitely my, my, I've, it's renewed my passion in podcasting
40:49
and my, my episodes for the last three months, you know, I've really been trying
40:51
to get my content guy to help me out.
40:53
And I just gotta say it's my superpower.
40:55
I can't let anyone else do it.
40:57
It's the thing I'm good at, not
40:58
Yeah.
40:59
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
41:00
No, absolutely.
41:01
We should do a whole episode one down.
41:02
Why every eCommerce branch should probably have their own podcast.
41:05
Uh, it's just, it's a personal pet thing of mine.
41:07
But I did let save that maybe for another day, uh,
41:11
yes.
41:12
We don't have the time today, Matt.
41:13
yeah.
41:13
Well, you've got four minutes before you need to bugger off, so,
41:16
I do.
41:18
so I figure is this it will be, it needs to be,
41:20
And, and can I say why I have to leave in four minutes?
41:22
Yeah.
41:23
Go for it.
41:24
Okay.
41:25
So the reason why, and, and Matt was like, why, how long can we talk for?
41:30
And the reason why I have to leave in four minutes is because I
41:33
have an hour where I'm gonna talk to my best friend on the phone.
41:36
And it's nothing to do with business.
41:38
And I recently read the, the book, the Five Types of Wealth And By Sahil
41:42
Bloom, highly recommend if, if anyone hasn't listened to it and realized,
41:46
I'm like, I only ever cared about the one kind of wealth, which is money.
41:50
And I didn't even really understand what that was like.
41:54
You know, I really actually thought that was just piling up cash
41:57
and, and that actually wasn't it because it didn't help me sleep at night no
42:00
matter how much money I had or how little, it just didn't even matter.
42:03
Right.
42:04
Until I realized the five types of wealth.
42:05
And one of them is relational wealth.
42:07
And I'm like, oh my gosh, I have, I have not.
42:10
Um, I've not prioritized that.
42:12
So even like today, you know, I had a meeting at 12 o'clock, uh, and
42:16
I realized that my wife was free for lunch and I was like, well,
42:18
I'm canceling that meeting 'cause.
42:20
Lunch is way more important with my wife than, than some rando meeting.
42:23
I'm sorry.
42:24
Like, it just is, and I'm not going to like be on my deathbed and be like, I'm
42:28
so glad I took that meeting with James.
42:30
Right.
42:31
I'll be like, oh, I'm so glad I made time for you
42:33
and, and for lunch and for slow things.
42:37
Right.
42:38
Um, anyway, that's what I wanted to tell you.
42:41
Well, we should do an episode on that as well.
42:43
Geez.
42:43
So many more episodes to come.
42:44
Jordan, listen.
42:45
Thank you so much, brother.
42:46
Always fun doing these, uh, podcasts and uh, and just
42:50
chatting the breeze with you, man.
42:51
And it's a shame I won't see you at Subs Summit this year.
42:53
Uh, but are you going subs, summit?
42:55
I am not, we're having a fourth child and moving, uh, in the next little while.
42:59
So
43:00
What kind of random excuse is that?
43:02
she would kill me if I went to Dallas right now.
43:05
So,
43:05
enough.
43:06
Fair enough.
43:07
Well, we'll hook up at some point in the future, no doubt.
43:09
But, um, if I don't speak to you before, I hope it goes well with
43:11
your fourth child, no doubt it will.
43:13
Um, but Jordan, you're a legend.
43:15
Thank you so much for coming on, man.
43:17
And thank you everybody for tuning in and listening to the show.
43:20
Make sure you like, subscribe, do all of that good stuff, but from
43:22
me and from Jordan, that's it.
43:25
Liked it.
43:26
Uh, and bye for now.