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He's Done 70 Acquisitions — Day One, He Calls PayPal · eCommerce Podcast

0:04
So hello and welcome to the eCommerce Podcast. My name is Matt Edmundson and it
0:08
is great as always to be with you today talking about all things ecommerce. Yes,
0:12
we are. Now, if you don't know me, my name, like I said, is Matt. I've been
0:17
around ecommerce since 2002, which is a long old time. That's for sure. I run my
0:21
own ecommerce businesses. I own ecom companies here in Liverpool. And in the UK
0:25
we ship all over the world. Uh, we've been doing it a while, and I love the fact
0:29
I get to do this podcast because I get to talk to some really cool people,
0:34
whether experts or founders, and I get to basically grill them. It's like an
0:38
hour with an expert on something, uh, that can really help my own ecommerce
0:42
businesses grow. Um, and so you get to listen to that conversation. Uh, that's
0:46
what, that's what this show is all about. So if you are new, very warm welcome
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There's just a whole bunch of stuff you can check out on the eCommerce Podcast
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2:11
to the show, let me not forget about you because you are awesome. You're the
2:16
reason why I can keep doing this. Um, it's great that you keep coming back time
2:20
and time again. And if we haven't connected yet, make sure we do so on something
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like LinkedIn or Instagram. I would love to hear your story. But that's it from
2:28
me. Let's get into this week's conversation with Bawar. Bawar, welcome to the show,
2:33
man. How are we doing?
2:38
Thank you, Matt. Doing great. Wow, 24 years in ecommerce. I feel like a baby.
2:47
No, no, no, don't feel like— I feel like a dinosaur. I feel like the old man.
2:51
I really do.
2:56
It is funny, ecommerce, having been around it for so long now and having seen
3:00
the sort of the evolution of ecommerce. I don't know whether that's an advantage
3:04
or disadvantage, but it's, you know, we're still here. We're still selling
3:09
stuff, which is important, I guess. But for those that might not know you, those
3:13
that don't know your story, just sort of give us the quick elevator pitch into
3:17
all things Bawar.
3:22
Yeah, sure. Let's do it. So I am one of the founders at Ecomma, where we— I've
3:27
been— my prior experience was a marketing agency. So I've maybe helped 400
3:32
ecommerce brands to grow, scale using simple paid media. I had one of my
3:37
clients, his name is Wieger Sietsma. He's also the co-founder of Ecomma. He had an
3:42
idea of doing something a little bit different, which is to buy an ecommerce
3:47
brand, scaled ourselves and tried to sell later on, which about 5, 6 years ago,
3:52
the first time. Well, move forward about 5 years, we've done about 70
3:57
acquisitions. We've scaled up. We have 40 proud team members to have on to help
4:02
us with this operation. And we've basically changed to being the ecommerce
4:07
aggregators, single standalone that we buy Shopify stores quite aggressively.
4:12
We're hoping to do this year about 30 to 36 acquisitions.
4:17
Oh wow.
4:18
Buy them, we do a lot of things to add value and then we sell them off. So it's
4:22
quite a simple model, but very hard to execute. And I've been doing that for the
4:26
last 6 years. Wow.
4:30
Yeah, this is why I've been looking forward to this conversation because this is
4:34
where we now switch roles. I've been in ecommerce longer than you, but you've
4:38
been in acquisitions longer than me. You've, you've done a lot more acquisitions
4:43
than I have. I'm definitely not doing 30 this year. But I do like this idea of
4:47
acquisition. I do like the idea of us, for example, buying more ecommerce
4:51
businesses like you, plugging them into our system. We've got the warehouse,
4:55
we've got the distribution, we've got the team. Can we make it work better and
4:59
run more profitable and build something collectively that's a bit more valuable?
5:04
The other strategy that we've not really talked about on the show, so obviously
5:08
everybody in ecommerce, everybody, most people in ecommerce want to build a
5:12
business and sell it, right? So there'll be everyone's going, oh, great, what's,
5:16
what's Bawar's details? Can I get in touch? We'll give you those at the end.
5:20
Teaser, you've got to stay until the end. But the, the other strategy, which I
5:24
think is interesting that maybe we should touch on a little bit is actually,
5:29
let's say, I'm in, uh, I don't know, I've got a pen in my hand. Let's say I've
5:33
got a website which sells pens. Um, there is a strategy which says part of my
5:37
growth could be to go and acquire a company, an ecommerce company that sells
5:41
paper, right? Um, and so you kind of go horizontal. Or I could even have a
5:45
strategy which says let me go and acquire the pen manufacturer because I've got
5:49
the output, um, direct-to-consumer. Now if you're a small ecommerce brand, you
5:54
might be thinking, how in the world can I even think about buying a company? Uh,
5:58
but I think let's get into it, uh, about I Where should we start on the whole
6:02
acquisition thing? I'll tell you where we should start. Why did you buy your
6:06
first business?
6:11
Yeah, I love it. I love it. Love it. It's a good question. Honestly, when I
6:16
think about it, I sometimes feel like I fell on my head because I had no idea
6:21
what I was doing. I remember Wieger calling me up and he was like, hey, you do
6:26
pretty good in paid marketing. How about we just find a small underperforming,
6:30
undervalued ecommerce brand and we just buy it and without even thinking a
6:35
second, even thinking about do I have the funds, do I want to spend it or not? I
6:40
just said yes, you know, let's, sorry for my words, but fuck it, you know, let's
6:45
do it. So we basically did it quite spontaneously. We made some mistakes along
6:49
the way. It still ended up being a profitable, happy deal. But yeah, we just got
6:54
it, which is the same decided to gamble on it and I'm happy I did. We learned
6:59
the hard way. The first one we bought was a shoe brand.
7:05
A shoe brand, okay.
7:06
Shoe brand, was selling internationally. It was declining actually. That's one
7:12
of the mistakes that we did. Don't buy a declining business. So we bought it
7:17
while it was declining. We acquired it just before Black Friday 2020, if I say
7:22
it perfectly from top of my head. We acquired it, we didn't even got like a
7:27
Facebook Business Manager with it. So after we provide the funds, the guy was
7:32
like, yeah, I'm using my Business Manager for other businesses, so get your own.
7:37
So we had no marketing data, we had no pixel, we had, I think he was using the
7:42
email list for other businesses as well. So we were like 3-0. Wow.
7:48
Wow.
7:49
But for some reason we managed to turn it around. And it's also one of the
7:53
advices that I would give if you end up acquiring or selling, just get prepared,
7:58
get yourself some advice. Don't go in too blind, especially for the first few
8:03
months. If you've done 2, 3, you get the game. But for the first one, get
8:07
yourself some advisory. It really helps. There's so many pitfalls. The thing is
8:12
with buying and selling and exiting, for example, your own ecommerce brand, it's
8:17
a very long process. It's not as you go to a, you put it on a Shopify store, you
8:22
run an ad and that's it, the money hits your bank account. Bank. It's quite a
8:26
long, yeah, painful process, um, which, you know, if it's your first time, it's
8:31
like anything, do your first time, it's, it, you will fall a few times.
8:36
Yeah, yeah.
8:37
You have to learn to stand this, to, to get back up and, well, basically do it
8:40
again.
8:44
Yeah, it's, I, I, it's fascinating listening to you talk about your first
8:49
acquisition and all the things that you did wrong because I'm thinking about the
8:53
first time we did it and very long list of all the things that we did wrong, uh,
8:58
but we've kind of, we've kind of survived, you know, and made it through. For
9:03
me, I guess the, the revelation came when, after running ecommerce businesses,
9:08
we started running other people's ecommerce businesses. We noted, and it was
9:12
something that we stumbled into, we started to take on other people's ecommerce
9:17
businesses by taking an equity stake in their business, right? And this was kind
9:22
of how it all started, and we just, you know, that— and so we've always had
9:26
partners in the ecom brands that we've acquired, um, to some degree or another,
9:31
and it's really worked well for us. But there's been a lot of things that we've,
9:36
we've learned, uh, along the way, the mistakes that we've made. When you I'm
9:40
really curious actually about when you talk about get prepared, it's a long
9:45
process, um, selling your ecommerce business or conversely buying an ecommerce
9:50
business. What are maybe 2 or 3— I mean, you've obviously bought a lot— what are
9:55
2 of the 2 or 3 things, the mistakes that everybody's making on the businesses
9:59
that you look at acquiring?
10:04
Oh yeah, I, I probably have answered the questions too, too many, too often. I
10:09
love to take you through what I have seen 90% of time happening in the head of a
10:14
seller. So usually for some reason they, because ecommerce, it's usually built
10:19
around lifestyle. It supplements an owner's or a founder's lifestyle and
10:23
lifestyle changes. So the moment comes that they wonder, you know, what's more
10:28
out there, they want something else. For whatever reason they cannot run it
10:33
anymore. So they Google, can I sell my business? And well, lo and behold, on top
10:37
there was a nice ad that says, hey, you know, your business might be worth this
10:42
amount, you know, we can do it for you. And they click on it and they fill in
10:47
the evaluation and see a very high valuation. That's usually how the platforms
10:52
get you in. And the seller thinks like, wow, this could be my bank account
10:56
tomorrow. Like, yeah, amazing. They go through the process, they list the
11:01
business at the valuation they were promised. And the moment they go to market,
11:06
they get a lot of interest. Because again, how the platforms are working is that
11:10
the moment you're listed, they push you out to the list, they push you out on
11:15
the front page, whatever it is to make you happy and give you the value on
11:20
basically the listing fee you just paid. But then after about 30, 50
11:25
conversations, people go cold, people die out. You have a lot of people just
11:29
looking and not really going forward, but you still are fixated on the, the top
11:34
valuation, maybe suddenly getting some offers, but before you know, you're
11:39
understanding that the valuation you had in mind and probably the valuations
11:43
you're getting now from interest, it's not really there. And the more time comes
11:48
by, the more the time passes by, the more the person, the seller gets detached
11:53
from the business. They stop thinking as much, thinking as that's the business
11:58
and that's me. What tends to happen as well, the business performance goes down.
12:02
Yeah.
12:03
Well, it's already sold. Why should I invest in new creatives? Why should I do
12:07
this new channel, pay for this big influencer? I'm gonna send away, let me just
12:11
hold it. New inventory, it's not needed, whatever it is. So they already start
12:15
working on a new business. They're already making a step out. And just this one,
12:19
the biggest mistake out there, because the moment business gets like, is coming
12:23
in, is declining, and buyers, they're not stupid, they're seeing this.
12:27
Yeah.
12:28
You lose almost all interest or a big portion of your valuation. Like you might
12:33
miss out 50% and give an example, let's say you're doing half a million dollars
12:38
in profit a year or let's start smaller, $100,000 profit in a year and you could
12:43
have gotten, let's say 3 times, like $300,000, you might only get $150,000. If
12:48
you're just a bit more dedicated for those 2 or 3 months, you might have had
12:53
another $150,000 in the— Yeah. Account. So big mistake there is just don't
12:58
assume the sale yet. It's not done, it's done. While it's not done, um, open for
13:04
business. Keep, keep running the business as if you're still the owner, you're
13:09
still growing it. You don't want to run the business as you're gonna sell it.
13:14
Buy Stripe out and they go through it. Second is, um, all these, uh, advisors,
13:19
and a good advisor is important, and there are for sure out there., but also
13:24
quite bad ones. And yes, first time is same as you're gonna hire marketing
13:29
agency. You might get burned a few times before you get understanding what's a
13:34
good marketing agency and people rush it too much. They go in, they get high,
13:39
being sold high valuation because M&A party, they just want the retainer or
13:45
whatever, just get another one on this and maybe sell them. Or they downsell you
13:50
later. So take your time as finding the right advisor. It's no rush. If it takes
13:55
another month or so, you might save a few months when you sell, when you go
14:00
through it properly. Last one, if I may say, is that clean financials. So many
14:05
ecommerce brands, I still see to this day, they're doing millions and millions
14:10
and millions a year and they're all hard on Google Sheets. And Excel and some
14:15
data here, Triple Whale there and whatever tools they're using. Buyers are
14:20
usually the most sophisticated. They're not very known in ecommerce. So it's
14:26
very tough for them to buy a business that has no key financials. Usually these
14:31
owners, they're paying their lease through the entity, they're paying for their
14:36
Uber Eats through the same entity they're using the stuff for. It's just a red
14:41
flag. Because it's not very structured. It shows that the business might have
14:46
maybe skeletons in the closet to deal with. So start thinking with the exit in
14:51
mind. Start with clean financials. Stop every personal cost going through the
14:56
business. Clearly separate it out. Get the basic, you know, P&L, balance sheet,
15:01
and cash flow reporting in there. Get the bookkeeping well set up, um, and make
15:07
sure it's updated, you know, don't mess with the invoices and stuff. So, you
15:12
know, clean financials, it's a big deal breaker.
15:18
Yeah, it's an interesting one, isn't it, the clean financials? Because certainly
15:22
in England, when you run a limited company, you legitimately want to put as much
15:26
through that company as possible to reduce your tax burden. But by putting as
15:31
much as you can legitimately put through the company to reduce your tax burden
15:35
because you're reducing your profits, you are in effect reducing the valuation
15:40
of your business because profit is such a significant figure when it comes to
15:44
value. And so it's this sort of real conundrum, isn't it, that you find yourself
15:48
in. It's like, do I maximize profits and pay more tax to get a better sales, uh,
15:53
to get a better exit? Um, and you've gotta— I think you've probably got to start
15:57
thinking about that 2 or 3 years before exit, I would have thought, right?
16:02
At least a year, like at least the prior financial year. And to be fair, there
16:07
are solutions to it. So even if you want to reduce your tax burden but still
16:11
not, you know, hit the valuation too much and push down your profit, it's called
16:15
normalization. You make a— but this also comes with clean financials. If you
16:19
have clean financials and you know very understanding, these are costs that
16:23
might not be very relatable to the business but personal, they're seller
16:27
discretionary earnings, they call it SDE for short. You just put it in a very
16:31
nice line normalization and you can still, uh, but most important is the mindset
16:35
is that you've had a business that supports your lifestyle and that's why they
16:40
want to reduce tax burden. You have to start thinking as an asset. This is a
16:44
business, this is a system, it's not a lifestyle business. This is something
16:48
that it's a machine that I just need to make better, make it sellable and make
16:52
it packaged so that whoever was the owner doesn't really matter. Not much would
16:56
change if everything is reliant, if every, every, everything you do, decision
17:00
you make, all going through you. There's risk in there. Buyers don't like risk,
17:04
they devalue it.
17:09
Yeah, yeah, no, that's a fair comment. That's fair comment. Let's talk about,
17:13
um, about the— then the time frame involved.
17:18
So there's—
17:19
I, I obviously, I, I need, I need clean financials um, I need a, a good advisor
17:24
and I need to not get detached from the company. I need to run the company all
17:29
the way till the finish line, um, and make sure it's, it's, it's, it's sort of
17:35
hitting the gas. What is the typical time frame for, say, when you guys acquire
17:40
a business, from the initial point of contact to the owner having cash in the
17:45
bank and being free and clear of that business?
17:51
I love that. So the moment that we send out the first questionnaire and let's
17:57
say we get a response to our questionnaire, up until the moment the cash hit the
18:03
bank, it's about, on average, about 14 days to 20 days.
18:09
So you guys are quite quick in your turnaround then.
18:12
Yeah, this is not standard.
18:13
Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is definitely not standard. I'm intrigued.
18:16
Yeah, so we, because we've done 70 acquisitions, we have all the systems and
18:20
tools to quickly evaluate, quickly go through DD. Like the moment we have our
18:24
answers and we got our access, we just send the offer out within 24 hours. If
18:28
you give us a thumbs up, we're doing DD in 7 days, contract maybe a couple more
18:32
days, and then it's the handover. And then we don't keep you on long enough. So
18:36
we've been really streamlining this to, and there's a big gap in there that
18:40
people really value the speed.
18:45
Yeah.
18:45
So that's something that we definitely offer. Typically when you go to market
18:48
and you sell your business on, let's say in a normal go-to-market scenario, I
18:52
think the average is like 3 to 4 months.
18:56
Yeah.
18:56
The moment you go to market to hopefully get the cash in the bank, it's 4
19:00
months. And we had a thought like, why is that the case? It's because a lot of
19:04
these buyers, they just don't understand the business. They don't understand the
19:08
model, they don't understand the ecommerce themselves. So if you do understand
19:12
the model, if you do understand how these platforms are working, you know what
19:16
to look for, you know what to do, your quick check and balances, and you can go
19:20
through it in like a week at most. So, and then we had the idea of making
19:24
technology around it, which somehow it worked out. So yeah, we can do it within
19:28
14 days.
19:33
That's insane. I'd say, I mean, good for you. It's a really fascinating system.
19:37
I'm just thinking about the businesses that I've sold over the years. They've
19:41
always been 6 months, right? Just, it's just, you know, it's going to take 6
19:45
months minimum out of your, out of your life. There's going to be 1,000 pieces
19:49
of paper you're gonna have to look at. So the fact you've streamlined the
19:53
system, I guess what that does is it, you guys have become like super dialed in
19:57
on what you're looking for in an ecommerce business, right? It's like, fill in
20:01
this questionnaire, that's going to tell me everything I need to know about
20:05
whether or not I'm intrigued in your business, I would have thought.
20:09
Exactly. We'll know it within an instant. It's simple. And one advice to give as
20:14
well, and this may be a quick point to note, because we mentioned 6 months, when
20:19
you do— because for UK you have a limited liability company, I think that's
20:24
quite— you either do a share transfer agreement or an asset purchase agreement.
20:28
So 99% of below, let's say, $2 million deals, they are asset purchase
20:33
agreements.
20:38
Yeah.
20:39
Which means the buyer, they don't buy the entity because they don't want to deal
20:43
with whatever contracts you've signed. They don't want to deal with, if you have
20:48
tax liabilities on your own, you've won, whatever it is, there's no skeleton in
20:52
there. So they just buy the assets of the business, which on its core, it's way
20:56
simpler, way quicker, way less legal things to sign because the buyer, they just
21:00
look at the assets, they like what they see and they just take over the assets.
21:05
They don't take your past, they don't take your account. Uh, so my advice as
21:09
well, always go for asset purchase agreements sub-2 million, um, in valuation.
21:14
Yeah, that's fair enough. The only— again, the, the only thing I'd say, being
21:19
British and having done share transfer agreements and both asset, uh,
21:23
agreements, is one is slightly better on the tax than the other. Um, so talk to
21:27
your accountant. Um, uh, but it's— I'm listening to you talk, it's interesting
21:32
because I think the way you do acquisitions and the way I do acquisitions is
21:36
different. And this is why I was really keen to talk to you, because I
21:41
definitely don't feel like our way is the only way, but I think it works for us,
21:45
right, in terms of how we've done it over the years. I never offer money for a
21:50
company, right? So, um, we, we go to a company, um, it may have on paper a
21:54
valuation of, I don't know, 200,000, 300,000, 400,000, whatever the You know, we
21:58
sort of, I guess we do well with companies between half a million and 3 million
22:03
in turnover, somewhere around there. Um, we found our sweet spot because I, what
22:07
I do is I, I basically say, listen, I'm not going to give you money for equity
22:12
in the business, but I will give you value. So what do I mean by that? So for
22:16
example, we'll house their operation in our warehouse. There's no rent costs.
22:21
Our staff will do the picking and packing and Um, so there's, you know what I
22:25
mean, we bring value in the other way. We take over the marketing, I get
22:29
involved, and there's no cost to that. And then when the business does make
22:34
money, everybody wins. And the founder usually has some equity stake left in the
22:38
business, so they don't feel like they're giving up their baby. I appreciate
22:43
this is not for everybody. Some people just like, I just want to check and I
22:47
want to get out. Um, I reckon though, Bawar, with the businesses that we've done
22:52
that way, we have been able to bring them in, bring our systems in, and then
22:56
increase the profitability of that business. So, um, we end up making more
23:00
money, certainly in the, in the, in the long run. Um, what systems do you have
23:05
in place? Like, what are you looking for in a business and think, if I'm looking
23:09
for this, because I know if we do this over here, for example, with us, um,
23:14
revealing all my secrets— they're not really secrets— but, um, we do really well
23:18
with companies that have small repeatable products. Right? You take a beauty
23:23
business or a supplement business, we acquired a gift company, and all these
23:27
types of businesses. I would never go and acquire a couch business, for example,
23:32
because that's not our strength. We're really good at getting people to buy the
23:36
product for a second time, third time, fourth time. I know our strengths, and I
23:40
know what we do super well.
23:45
What—
23:46
so I can look at a business and go, right, well, we can, we can make an impact
23:49
here, and we reckon we'll have this, this impact. How do you do it? Because
23:52
obviously, you get that questionnaire back, You're an investor, you've got to
23:56
have a return on your investment. You've got to look at that business and go, I
23:59
reckon within 2 years we can 2x this, 3x this by doing X, Y, and Z. What is it
24:02
you're looking for?
24:06
One of my fun things to do, one thing I— if you wake me up 3 AM in the morning,
24:11
you ask me this question again, I can just ramble on for like hours and hours.
24:16
Um, at the end of the day, we are playing the game of buying a business at a
24:21
certain valuation and selling it at hopefully a higher valuation. And valuation
24:26
is depending on two things, it's profit and risk. Yeah. So we always think about
24:31
ourselves, how we can increase profit and how can we de-risk the business.
24:36
Sometimes, like maybe 20% of the times, we have not increased the profit, we
24:40
just have removed the risk from the business. Right. We build a team, we remove
24:45
the set of dependency, we added some extra backup suppliers, we got some better
24:50
contracts in place, you know, whatnot. So we get the risky business. We do about
24:55
what we call this value drivers. We have about 12 to 15 depending on type of
25:00
business of standardized things we do for these businesses. I'll give you the
25:05
first one. It's the, this is a free giveaway for everyone listening out there.
25:10
It's negotiating cost down. One of the easiest things to do. I can tell you
25:15
Matt, maybe 90% of the time We get our hands on the business, we buy it the
25:19
first day, we just call all the vendors or suppliers. This is your Klaviyo
25:24
software, this is your PayPal transaction fee, this is your supplier, this is
25:29
your 3PL, whatever it is, get them on the phone and ask for better pricing.
25:34
You'll be surprised how much of the vendors were like, we're waiting for this
25:39
call for some time. So let's see what we can do. And we end up maybe whatever
25:44
profit they do with another 20% almost overnight. So on PayPal, we've added 20%
25:49
of valuation on the first day. So that's one of the first things. Second, we do
25:53
a lot around marketing. So we know our strengths as well, which is just to scale
25:58
up paid media. So it's some, a lot of lists we do on, we check the ad accounts,
26:03
we check the creatives. Very simple question. If they tell us, yeah, we are
26:08
launching 8 new videos a month on Facebook. Well, we know if we just, increase
26:13
the volume to 20 a month or 30, very likely the ROAS on Facebook ads will go up.
26:18
So we do that as well. Third thing, this is like a big one we do and there's
26:23
also a big recommendation for someone out there. There's kind of new channel
26:28
coming up that 95% of the brands are not on, which is voice marketing.
26:32
Especially if you're selling in English native speaking countries. Voice
26:37
marketing, it's quite hot new thing. Like same as SMS came up about 10 years
26:42
ago, 15 years ago and it was like everybody was like milking it out the first
26:47
few years. I believe now is the time of voice marketing. So we get the business
26:52
on, we ask like, hey, which channels are you on? And just say like, hey, we do
26:57
Facebook and email, no SMS, no voice. We know again, the moment you acquire it,
27:02
we just turn on SMS flows, SMS campaigns and we turn on most importantly, voice
27:06
flows and voice campaigns. I have an amazing app out there using this. It just
27:11
adds maybe 5% to revenue overnight. So adding this little 5% here, 20% there,
27:16
20% there, before you know it, you doubled the business in 90 days.
27:22
Yeah. And is that what you are aiming to do? You're aiming to 2X the business in
27:24
90 days?
27:27
Yes. Our average is about 150% in 90 days. So we actually crush that. And it
27:31
gets better as we do more of it.
27:35
Well, so you've definitely got the systems dialed in.
27:39
Yes, it's like a system processes. And problem is what we see is that a lot of
27:43
these sellers, they're solopreneurs, right? So they are one single founder
27:48
owner. They're usually very good at one thing. You might be very good at
27:52
retention, someone's just very good at paid media, someone's very good in
27:57
affiliate marketing and they just do the one thing they're good at. They don't
28:01
really look for other channels out there. And when you've seen hundreds and
28:05
hundreds of these ecommerce brands throughout the years, you just see a pattern,
28:10
right? So you can see that 20% of people, they've done very good in paid ads.
28:14
That's what they did. 20% of people, they were very good in affiliate. This is
28:19
what they did. Okay, let's take this stuff, put it on here, and let's take paid
28:23
media, put it on affiliate business system. Before you know, all goes up.
28:28
Um, yeah, it works well, right? And this, I guess, is the benefit of being a
28:32
company, uh, like you, I suppose, like me in some respects, is we have teams
28:36
that can do these things. So if you're the solopreneur, or you, you're a little,
28:40
you know, you're a couple and you're running this business, actually, for you to
28:44
go and do all of these things, you've got to hire more agencies. And the chances
28:47
are very strong you've been burnt with agency, and it's not a route you want to
28:51
go down. And so, um, you know, come into a company like yours, you've got the
28:55
big team, you've got the experts in influencer marketing and in paid media ads,
28:59
and you can use that expertise and leverage that expertise straight away. I'm
29:03
curious what you define as voice marketing, though. This is something that you
29:07
mentioned. Let me just press that button a little bit.
29:11
Yeah, I love it. So right now, if you're not doing this, and you for sure should
29:16
be doing this. So right now, all Shopify stores, they have at least email flow
29:20
setup. You go to any website, you add something to your cart, you fill in your
29:24
email, your phone number, whatever, and you don't check out, you at least send
29:28
an email, hey, you forgot something in your cart, here's 10% off, please finish
29:32
your checkout. Almost all of them, they do it. If not, you're sleeping on
29:37
something, just turn it on, takes 30 minutes via Klaviyo. Amazing. You're making
29:41
at least 5% extra. Some of them are doing SMS. Oh, hey, you were checking out,
29:45
you filled in your phone number, okay, I'm done, here's 10% off, go forward. But
29:49
now with the cost of AI going down very quickly and also the quality of voice AI
29:53
going up very quickly, there was a new channel popping up, which is voice AI,
29:57
which is voice agents or voice marketing, which is basically the moment you fill
30:02
something up to your cart, you get immediately after 10 minutes a phone call. It
30:06
could be 1:00 AM, it could be 1:00 PM, doesn't really matter. These agents, the
30:10
softwares never sleep. They give you a call like, hey Matt, I saw you were
30:14
checking out on our website, what made you interested? You even get feedback
30:18
from them. Oh, I was looking for, you know, to stop my acne on my forehead or
30:23
whatever it is. You get the input and then they give the discount code and then
30:27
they converted. It's quite a high converting channel. Yeah. Because it's such
30:31
personal. And this is something that for sure it'll change in the next 3 to 5
30:35
years. But for now we see this as a new untapped channel. That's, you know,
30:39
that's a new retention channel. After SMS, it's a voice, the third one. And we
30:44
believe that 3 years from now, you can see them as email. You cannot think
30:48
without it anymore. You need some voice channel set up if it's inbound and
30:52
outbound. But yeah, we're pretty early with it and to be honest, we are milking
30:56
it out.
31:04
What top tip? Go and get your voice marketing set up. I suppose you could dip
31:08
your toes in slightly here just thinking this through because I know a lot of
31:12
people would be quite nervous about letting AI loose on their customers, um, or
31:15
potential customers. You can also do voice memos, can't you? So you could send a
31:19
voice memo through SMS or WhatsApp and go, hey Matt, um, it's Susan here and
31:23
just checking in. Um, and things like that, they just add a little bit of the
31:27
old je ne sais quoi, don't they? They add that sort of little bit of extra that
31:31
you're not getting from anyone else.
31:35
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, uh, I think it's great what is with voice marketing
31:39
specifically, especially if if you get it set up well, you can finally listen to
31:43
your customers. A lot of people are still sometimes guessing or running surveys
31:48
like why they want to buy it, who is my audience. But the moment you go back and
31:52
you listen to the recording and you see a mother of 10-year-old looking for the
31:56
toy for the gift and you understand why they're buying, it gives also so much
32:00
intelligence that maybe you wouldn't have gotten if it was just, you know, the
32:04
paid ads and the email and SMS.
32:08
Yeah, yeah.
32:10
We do the thing that, that voice, and even do voice memos, it's also at least a
32:13
step forward. But we do voice, it's going to be a very powerful channel in the
32:16
next few years.
32:19
Yeah, that's really interesting.
32:21
I, I very—
32:22
I shall watch with bated breath on the old voice marketing thing. Um, let's
32:27
switch tracks slightly, Bawar, if we can, because I, I mentioned at the start of
32:31
the show, maybe one of the things that you could do to grow your business is to
32:35
acquire another business. Right. So let's say somebody out there is listening to
32:39
that and going, I've never thought about that as a possibility, Matt. Where
32:43
would I even start? And what would your advice be?
32:48
So this is fun. This is like shopping. You just got to spend money. That's the
32:52
fun side of things. So when you are deciding on buying a business, first the
32:57
question becomes, why are you buying? Are you, as you mentioned, a strategic
33:01
buyer? Do you want to strengthen the business you have currently, or would you
33:06
like to just care about, you know, the yearly return you make on the amount of
33:10
your invest? Um, because there are two different acquisitions. One, you might
33:15
purely look at stable cash flow, which is when you look at the yearly return.
33:20
Why you might purely look at revenue, and if you can just, uh, what you call
33:24
skin the meat, so you can cut a lot of things when you, when you're becoming the
33:29
owner, and you combined one team doing both. Once you're clear on what you want
33:33
to do, there are quite a lot of platforms out there. I've also mentioned that,
33:38
get these sellers into the platform with high valuations. They do have a lot of
33:42
deal flow and volume coming. A great start, same as you will go shopping on
33:47
Amazon, get on these websites. You have Flippa, you have Acquire, you have
33:52
BizBuySell, you have you have local natives. So for example, you're in UK, you
33:56
have like sellanybusiness.uk or I think something in that line. You have very
34:01
localized websites as well. Get those websites and just go Amazon shopping. You
34:05
can look at description, you can look at the history. Just get yourself in
34:10
there. Don't set your eyes immediately on the first one. Same as you wouldn't
34:14
buy the first thing you see in Amazon. At least I don't. I would just at least
34:19
scroll down and start Comparing a little what's out there, you know, what's out
34:24
there. So then you start shopping, as we say, you start to be in touch with
34:28
sellers, you're asking for P&Ls, you're asking for more questions, you start to
34:33
understand it, you're trying to understand how it would look like to buy and you
34:37
just pull information. This is step 1. Build your knowledge base, you're gonna
34:42
pull information. Once you have it, you will have a good idea of how an
34:46
acquisition would look like, what businesses are out there or coming up to the
34:51
flow or you know, which amount of structures and valuations and yeah, what
34:56
you're funding to think of if, you know, that's something you want to do. And
35:00
once you have it, again, I advise get an advisor on board or at least someone to
35:05
guide you through the process. They might be costly, but they will save you.
35:09
Yeah, the good rule of thumb is 5% of the transaction amount, set it aside for
35:14
advisors. So if you're looking to buy, let's say, a million-dollar business, set
35:18
aside about $50,000 to get yourself advised.
35:24
Yeah.
35:25
On online acquisitions. Well, once you have that, great. You gotta start
35:29
choosing your business. Once you've chosen the target company, you can make
35:33
offers. Fun period. Again, you always feel full of optimism when you make an
35:37
offer. You just start sending offers out, which for sure they'll negotiate,
35:41
they'll come back forward. There'll be lots of questions. Same as you would buy
35:45
real estate, for example. There's a lot of back and forth. Once you have that
35:49
clear, and now comes the biggest advice I can give, you're gonna go into due
35:52
diligence. So let's say the seller accepted, congratulations, you're one step
35:56
closer to buying your first business. Due diligence is the moment to understand
36:00
the business. A lot of people just focus on verifying, which is for sure
36:04
something you have to do, and that's why you have advisors. Make sure whatever
36:08
was being told to you is also the truth, there's nothing being withheld. But
36:12
most importantly, what people will miss out, understand the business. Yeah. A
36:16
lot of buyers, they wait for this until they've acquired and they understand
36:20
that, well, maybe they wouldn't have bought the business if they knew, if they
36:24
really understand the business before. But during DD, it's to verify and to
36:27
understand.
36:32
Yeah.
36:32
Put emphasis as the owner or as the buyer more on the understanding and let your
36:37
advisors do the verifying. You just really have to understand the processes, the
36:41
team, get to know the team, how you work together, A big advice, plan a few
36:46
strategy sessions with the team before you send any money out. Strategy
36:50
sessions, or you just say like, okay, hey, if we end up acquiring, this is what
36:55
we will do. Or like, what do you think? Yeah. You will see that amount, but the
36:59
problem is a lot of bias is that they come into this with a lot of optimism, a
37:04
lot of optimism. We can do this, it's easy. You can turn on one button and it's
37:09
out there. The truth is it's the old owner, the seller, they have been in the
37:13
business for 3, 4 years. They have made the mistakes that you're about to make.
37:18
They have tested a lot of things that, you know, you just want to go test out or
37:22
touch the buttons. They have their own idea behind it. They know the business
37:27
the best. They know which Excel sheets, which buttons, which persons, which
37:31
pricing points, which competitors out there. If you go in blind and you're less
37:36
informed than, let's say, the current seller, you're always one step behind. You
37:41
will perform very likely less than the person. But if you can enrich yourself
37:45
with their knowledge and information and you can add on top your own because you
37:50
have your own experience, that's when you will start having an advantage over
37:54
someone who's in the business. So really focus on the knowledge. Before you send
37:59
the money out.
38:05
Is this how you deal with, um, like quite involved founders then? So there's a
38:09
lot of smaller ecommerce businesses which are founder-led, aren't they? And
38:13
they're all their social medias around the founder and what the founder's doing
38:18
in the factory that day. And, um, they're like the driving force behind that.
38:22
And if you lose them, you kind of lose, you know, a good chunk of the business.
38:26
Um, It's like, how do you deal with that?
38:32
We typically don't touch it while we're the buyer because as you say perfectly,
38:37
the moment they leave, they're either, the moment they sell, they're either less
38:42
motivated to keep doing or the whole marketing will fall apart. So when you're a
38:47
seller and you're founder-led marketing, try to move away from it as quick as
38:51
possible. Try to pay the price for going to either a different person or just
38:56
not founder-led basically before you go into the process because the buyers fall
39:01
over. It's like, I'll give you a story. Once we did buy a business that was very
39:06
high dependent on the founder and she was making the videos, she was on every
39:11
post. The moment, you know, the deal got through, we wanted to run on like a
39:16
salary or on some compensation package so we could, use us still for at least a
39:20
year moving forward. Even though we had it all on contract, well, she had the
39:25
money, she went on holiday, she started thinking about kids moving forward. So
39:30
the whole life changed of her after that, which had a big impact on the quality
39:35
of videos and involvement she had in the business, which eventually gave us like
39:40
a 2-month dip. We had to let her go. We stepped in ourselves, we hired someone
39:45
else, took another month or two to get back up and running. And finally we
39:49
basically came back from the pit. And then after that we said, okay, either, you
39:54
know, when we do a deal, we ask the founder, make yourself replaceable, find
39:59
someone, train it, show us that this is profitable without you, and only then we
40:04
move in or we don't touch it.
40:09
Yeah, yeah. Interesting, interesting. What about then, um, if I'm, if I am
40:14
thinking, you know, I'm, I'm turning over a million quid, I, let's, you're going
40:19
to have to be doing at least a million, I think, for this to be a sensible
40:24
solution, aren't you? Probably a little bit more in terms of sales. But, um, and
40:29
you think, I want to get to 5 million in growth. Okay, so one thing I can do is
40:34
double the size of my business, which I think is probably reasonable. But the
40:39
other thing I can do is buy my competitor or someone on the side here that's
40:44
also doing $2 million, and instantly I've got a $4 million turnover. Um, so
40:48
growth by acquisition, they call it, uh, as the, as the strategy. How would you
40:53
approach that as an ecommerce operator? Like, how would you think about the
40:58
types of businesses that would be worth acquiring? What would be your, your
41:03
thought pattern there?
41:09
It's a good question. How I'll probably go more about it is that I think all of
41:14
ecommerce brand marketing and whatever is really worth in there, it's built
41:20
around the audience. So if you're selling, let's say a skincare brand, you have
41:25
a skincare brand, then your audience might be 35 female with acne problems. To
41:30
stick with that example, you don't wanna buy a phone case company and add
41:36
revenue on top. You don't even wanna buy, let me buy the fake mascara, 'cause
41:41
it's different. Even though it's the same niche, it's a different audience. At
41:47
the end of the day, it's way better and easier to build the brand and the
41:52
ecosystem around the specific audience you're going after. So I think if you
41:57
know very well who's your audience, start asking them like what kind of products
42:03
or asking for problems, what kind of solutions do you think you'll be interested
42:08
in? And if you're selling skincare for acne problems, they might say like, hey,
42:13
yeah, but I also want some moisturizer to go after, or maybe I want to have
42:19
something for my supplement because I think that food also has an impact. Acne,
42:24
then you can go out and look for supplement company to basically integrate into
42:29
it because then it's very easy to either upsell or cross-sell your own audience
42:35
to the other brand. I would just go with audience first. Who's the audience,
42:40
what they are looking for, and by basically what they are using or which
42:45
problems you can solve for them around your audience.
42:51
Yeah, that's a really good idea. I like, I, we, for example, um, one of the
42:56
things that we've been thinking about, we have a, a supplement company, um,
43:00
that's quite niche. It's vegan supplements, right? So it's a niche product, um,
43:05
it's growing really strongly at the moment, really stoked with how everything's
43:09
going. And we've looked at the market and gone, well, one of the things that our
43:14
audience, to you just talked about, asks us for a lot is, uh, protein. Okay, so
43:18
you then you go, right, well, okay, well, we, we have a menu, we know how to
43:23
manufacture supplements, we've got manufacturing facilities. So, um, can we
43:27
manufacture protein? No, not really. I mean, we could go buy the machines to do
43:32
it, I suppose. So then you go out to the manufacturing companies and the prices
43:36
come back and you go, goodness me, that's crazy. I mean, so because we're not
43:41
buying like a lot at the start, the costs are quite high. You're talking
43:45
hundreds of thousands of pounds just to get started. And so for me, the next
43:50
logical step is to go, who out there is a vegan protein company that's doing
43:54
well? Let me go have a conversation with those guys and see if there's anything
43:59
that we can do, um, as a deal. Like, could we do a merger? Could we acquire
44:03
their company? Could we— and what would that look like? You know, and all of
44:08
those sorts of questions. I think It makes sense as an ecommerce business, like
44:12
you say, to think about your audience, think about what it is they want. And
44:17
yes, you can look at supplying that. Like, we could do a vegan protein. We've
44:21
got all the, the quotes and stuff in. But before I hit the button there, I want
44:26
to look at what's involved in acquiring a vegan protein company. It's probably
44:30
already doing 2, 3, 4 million online in sales. Will that get me where I need to
44:35
go faster?
44:40
Yeah, I think, I think it's a great idea. And if you do it and you end up
44:45
selling the business, do offer it to me. I'd love to buy the company.
44:49
I'll fill out your questionnaire.
44:52
I think it's a great market to be in either way, 'cause it's very, the retention
44:55
is high. I think the customers are coming back and of course you have to love
44:58
it, but the moment they love it, it's just, you know, they're hooked for life
45:01
kind of.
45:04
Yeah, yeah.
45:05
And I think if you can make the product flywheel just add more basic products to
45:10
the product file. So protein, maybe supplements. What do you have in there? But
45:16
it could be more around this kind of health benefits food. I think you can
45:21
really easy build it out to a big strong brand and I'm sure you do it. But if
45:27
you add subscriptions to it as well, you fly.
45:34
Yeah, we definitely converted to a subscription company when I got involved and
45:38
it's like So yeah, the things that we're thinking about, like vegan protein—
45:42
obviously we could acquire a company there. We could actually go and find the
45:46
company that's making the vegan protein and think about the horizontal as well
45:50
as the vertical, the vertical as well as the horizontal. Um, could we or should
45:54
we acquire a manufacturer of those, of those products because we know about
45:58
manufacturing? Yes or no? Probably not, but it's a question that we're gonna,
46:02
you know, ask. But again, it all comes down to listening to your audience. So I
46:06
was with some folks just a couple of days ago, my target audience, massively,
46:10
the two questions they asked me, do I do protein, do I do electrolytes? And it's
46:14
like, very good. Well, electrolytes actually are coming. We've developed that
46:18
product. So, you know, that's an interesting story. Protein's a little bit more
46:22
complicated. But I'm like, let me, let me come back to me in 6 months' time. So
46:26
you are right, listen to your audience and what the possibilities are there. And
46:30
don't just assume you have to make it. You could go out and acquire a company or
46:34
merge with a company that's already doing what you're doing.
46:39
Yeah, yeah, buying both. I love it. Yeah, it's the cheat way, the cheat code to,
46:43
uh, fast growth, I think, um, if you structure it well.
46:48
Yeah, yeah. Well, if you structure well, what do you mean by that?
46:52
So when you end up buying a competitor, and we have done it a few times, again,
46:57
we've made mistakes you will see that if it's the exact— for example, if you,
47:02
if, if you're keeping the owner involved, you gotta make sure that you like the
47:06
owner. If, if you don't, you have to structure it that there's still— I'll give
47:11
an example. When you're the acquiring party, it's always good when you're
47:16
keeping the owner involved to have a call or put option in there. Yeah, that if
47:21
for whatever reason you don't really sync well with the, with, with the, with
47:25
the seller or with the owner, that you can still buy them out without too much
47:30
hassle. Because a lot of situations has happened that one company full of
47:35
optimism was to buy the competitor and they keep the owner involved for
47:39
whatever, and they clash later on because the culture is not the same, because
47:44
the team doesn't go well together. You need either a way out of this or you need
47:49
a way that governance that, okay, if the situation happens, what do we do,
47:54
right? Do we just vote and is it deadlock? Nothing's happening moving forward.
47:58
So when you are going with the buy and build approach and you basically have one
48:03
platform company and you want to do the add-on acquisitions, let's say below,
48:08
it's really important to understand if you want to keep the owners involved, yes
48:12
or no? Yeah. The teams involved, yes or no? How about, you know, if it's
48:17
cross-border? So there's a lot of things in there that, you know, you have to
48:22
think about for at least your first one and just copy-paste for the rest. Yeah,
48:27
the structure there, it's very important.
48:32
Yeah, that's true, that's true. I think one of my biggest lessons that I learned
48:36
was, like you say, not necessarily so much do I want to keep the owner on, more
48:40
what's the culture of the business and is it similar to ours? Right? Because if
48:45
the culture of that company is not similar to ours, it's just not going to work,
48:49
um, at all. And so I do spend a lot of time understanding values and culture of
48:53
the companies that we're looking at, um, like, because if, if that, if that can
48:57
work, then I'm fairly sure we can get through most of whatever difficulties we'd
49:02
face.
49:07
Um, it's a harder spot. Yeah. Assess a culture. Yeah, positions, right? You need
49:12
to be there, walk around. You need to honestly look up their past interviews,
49:16
whatever, not speak with people. You know, it's probably also the hardest part.
49:21
So usually my event, my, my, uh, what I prefer, my preference, also just buying
49:26
out 100%.
49:32
Yeah, yeah.
49:33
I think if you, you would rather spend the time and energy or say like, hey, we
49:37
don't need them anymore and we have the team and we have the process, everything
49:41
in place to not rely on the team or the culture, I think it's cheaper than
49:45
figuring out the culture.
49:49
Yeah, yeah.
49:51
You know, going afterwards. But if you have a way to quickly understand the
49:57
culture or integrate between cultures, it's very valuable.
50:03
Yeah, yeah, no, I get why you do that. Well, I do get why they do that. Um,
50:08
listen, but I'm aware of time and it is fast disappearing in front of me. So if
50:12
people want to reach out to you, if they want to connect with you, um, what's
50:17
the best way to do that? And I guess also, Bawar, just maybe just to avoid
50:21
confusion and maybe an influx of people, what sort of businesses do you work
50:26
well with? What What sort of things are you looking for?
50:31
If you're doing more than, let's say, $30,000 a month and you do less than a
50:36
million a month, so between $30,000 to a million, you have something that's not
50:41
seasonal and you're profitable, maybe also profitable for at least like a year
50:45
and you're more than a year, we like to buy you, at least to make an offer. So
50:50
what we can do, because I've made the mistakes of, we've also gone through like
50:55
60 exits in the last 4 or 5 years. So I've seen the pain, I felt the pain. We
51:00
have a lot of checklists and we have example, one due diligence checklist, how
51:05
to prepare yourself before you go to market. Shoot me an email, it's my name,
51:09
bawar@ecomma.co, that's co, not .com. Shoot me an email, I will send it free to
51:14
you. It's just, let's say a gift me back to the community about how to prepare
51:19
your business for sale and just pitfalls to watch out for. If you're looking to
51:24
also understand how much your business might be worth, we have an amazing
51:29
calculator on our website, it's ecomma.co, check it out. But you don't have
51:34
to do it. Feel free just to get my value on my checklist and I'm happy to send
51:38
it over.
51:44
Yeah.
51:45
So yeah, that's it. That's the way to at least get started on selling your
51:48
business.
51:51
Yeah, yeah, fantastic. We will of course put that email and the website link in
51:55
the show notes. Just scroll down on your podcast app, just look in the YouTube
51:59
description, and they will be there. Of course, they'll also be on the website
52:03
or in your inbox if you subscribe to the newsletter. And— wow, this is great.
52:07
It's been great. I'm genuinely— so many more questions. But alas, we've got to
52:10
that time of the show where I need to ask you for a Question for me, sir. This
52:14
is where you give me a question and I go away and answer on social media. So,
52:18
Bawar, what is your question for me?
52:23
I'll be honest, last 15 minutes I was like cracking my brain, what should be
52:28
the, what should be the question. You're, you're a true dinosaur in the
52:32
ecommerce market. So my question is, you've been in this for 24 years. Do you
52:36
think in 24 years from now you'll still be in ecom?
52:41
Oh, that's a great question. That is a really good question. That's probably one
52:45
of my favorite questions. I will answer that on social media. Come find me @Matt
52:50
Edmundson. At some point in the not-too-distant future, I will give you my
52:54
answer to that question. The second thing, Bawar, that we like to do at this stage
52:58
of the show, for those that have stayed around, we like to deliver something
53:03
called saving the best till last. So if someone is selling their ecommerce
53:07
business. You've talked about various things, uh, on the show. For those that
53:12
have stayed around, what's your best bit of advice that you've not yet covered
53:16
that's really going to help them maximize the value for their business?
53:22
Clean financials. I got to reiterate it, um, I would double down even on it, is
53:27
that the more, the more you can— the amount of you can get extra if you just
53:31
prepared in life. You prepare your financials, if you prepare your SOPs and your
53:36
systems and your teams, it really, really helps a lot. People really
53:41
underestimate it. If you come in prepared and buyers blown away— we have a very
53:45
nice saying which says time kills deals. Yeah, time is value for, for that
53:50
matter. The moment someone asks you for financials or they ask you for, for
53:54
explanation, you have to go back. 3, 4 days, it just kills deals. If you're
53:59
prepared and you have everything ready, you have the data room, you have the
54:03
financials, you have the invoices all well, you know, nicely structured and so
54:08
on, follow somewhere and they ask you a question and within 5 minutes you say,
54:13
here's the answer. I can guarantee you that the probability of closing a deal
54:17
goes up by 1,000%. So get prepared.
54:22
Get prepared. The data room, I think is, or the data vault as sometimes we call
54:27
it internally, is the biggest thing, isn't it? It's— we found when we've exited
54:31
businesses, going, right, they're gonna— we know these are the 400 questions
54:36
they're going to ask us, so let's write the answers to those ahead of time so
54:40
that when we get asked, it's like, oh, here everything is. And you, like you
54:44
say, I have a slightly different phrase which I— similar to yours, time, you
54:49
know, time kills deals. But, um, I, I remember one of the guys one of the
54:53
training courses I went on around acquisitions. One of the things he said was,
54:58
deals are like concrete— the longer you leave them, the harder they get, right?
55:02
And it's, um, I might steal that one, which is so true. And so the quicker you
55:06
can make the whole thing, the better. And, uh, if you're selling, like you say,
55:11
the whole thing is about preparation. So I love that, um, get your data room
55:15
ready. B, listen, thank you so much, man. Genuinely loved this conversation. I
55:19
mean, I know I say that most weeks, but I did. I just get so much value out of
55:24
these things. Always good to connect with people that are also doing similar
55:28
things to me and just pick your brains a little bit. So thanks for sharing your
55:33
knowledge and sharing what you know. It's been great, man.
55:38
Thank you, Matt. I appreciate that. You got something, you got a great podcast
55:41
going. So I think the amount of value you're giving to the audience, I'm happy
55:45
just to be able to contribute. So thank you for having me.
55:49
Ah, wonderful, wonderful. So there you go, another episode of the eCommerce
55:52
Podcast all wrapped up. What a great episode, eh? So if you're not subscribed,
55:56
make sure you do subscribe because we've got more of these great conversations
56:00
coming up, and of course I don't want you to miss any of them. And like I said
56:04
at the start of the show, anything you need to know about today's guest, about
56:08
the show notes for today, the detailed blog post, that's all at
56:12
ecommercepodcast.net. If you are a SAM user, in the email you'll have some thing
56:16
which will be a prompt to get SAM to help you understand what Bawar has said and
56:19
how the— that's going to impact your business. So try that and see how you get
56:23
on. But yeah, that's it from me. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a
56:27
phenomenal week wherever you are in the world. I will see you next time. Bye for
56:31
now.