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A Christmas Thank You to Every Digital David · eCommerce Podcast

• 0:04
  Merry Christmas,
• 0:05
  especially if you are listening to this on Christmas Day,
• 0:08
  which is when it is coming out.
• 0:10
  Yes.
• 0:10
  Welcome to the eCommerce Podcast.
• 0:12
  My name is Matt Edmundson, and a very, very Merry Christmas to you.
• 0:16
  Now, you, if you are listening to this on Christmas Day, maybe you're
• 0:19
  escaping a. The in-laws for five minutes for no reason whatsoever.
• 0:22
  Maybe you are on a walk with the dog while the Turkey does its thing in your stomach.
• 0:26
  Maybe you are driving somewhere and needs something in your ears other
• 0:30
  than the standard Christmas rhetoric.
• 0:32
  I dunno, whatever brought you here.
• 0:34
  Can I just say very merry?
• 0:37
  Christmas to you.
• 0:39
  Now, full disclosure, this isn't what I would call a proper episode,
• 0:43
  proper episode, however we define that right, whatever that means.
• 0:47
  Uh,
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  there's no framework, there's no experts, there's no downloads,
• 0:50
  there's no four steps.
• 0:51
  Just me, a cup of tea and a huge, massive thank you to you.
• 0:58
  Given that it is Christmas, um, and we've been going through
• 1:01
  the season of Christmas.
• 1:02
  I'm wearing the Christmas jumper.
• 1:03
  Um, I have, I've got about 15, I think I've mentioned this before in
• 1:06
  the show, about 15 Christmas jumpers.
• 1:08
  I love it.
• 1:09
  Me and my daughter, we wear different Christmas jumpers every day.
• 1:11
  We've, we've maybe got a problem, I'm not gonna lie.
• 1:15
  Um.
• 1:16
  But I've been thinking about Advent recently, mainly 'cause of the
• 1:19
  Christmas jumpers, but also because I'm now involved in a company that
• 1:24
  creates advent style gift experiences.
• 1:26
  Right.
• 1:27
  We've just recently taken that over.
• 1:29
  Um, it's a sort of this idea of seven gifts on over sort of seven
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  days leading up to a birthday or an anniversary or a special occasion,
• 1:35
  and of course Christmas, right.
• 1:38
  Um, and so, yeah, I've been thinking about this because we were working
• 1:42
  on some email messaging recently.
• 1:44
  For the company, we're like, right, let's get a hold of the email message.
• 1:47
  It's one of the first things that we did.
• 1:48
  And shout out to George Bryant, uh, who's a friend of the show who's been on before.
• 1:53
  Um, we just literally copied his Apple email sequence ideas and we
• 1:57
  were just like, how does this work for, uh, advent style gift company?
• 2:01
  Um, and so we, we started exploring that and we looked at that and we looked
• 2:05
  at this idea of advent and what Advent actually means, because I didn't really
• 2:10
  know, um, and it took me back in time.
• 2:14
  When, when I started going down this.
• 2:16
  Memory lane if you like.
• 2:17
  Um, to, when I was a kid, I dunno if you remember being a kid at Christmas,
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  for me, Christmas was magical.
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  You know that feeling when December finally arrives and you get the
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  advent calendar, which counts down the sleeps to the next, the sort of big
• 2:32
  adventure of Christmas Day, doesn't it?
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  And it's brilliant.
• 2:35
  And you can't wait to open the next door on the Advent calendar,
• 2:40
  and it just builds this anticipation and it becomes so thick.
• 2:44
  That as a kid you can sort of barely stand it really.
• 2:48
  And it wasn't just about the chocolate, although obviously
• 2:50
  the chocolate actually helped.
• 2:52
  It was about knowing something wonderful was coming, you know, the
• 2:58
  waiting in effect, the anticipation was the magic, wasn't it?
• 3:03
  And I wonder, I wonder when most of us lost that feeling, that sort
• 3:08
  of sense as we climbed through our teenage years into our early twenties.
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  And if you're like me, maybe you discovered it again when you
• 3:14
  started having your own kids.
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  And that's just a whole new level of wonderfulness, isn't it?
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  Now, the word advent I have discovered comes from the Latin Adventus.
• 3:24
  I'm not a Latin scholar.
• 3:25
  Uh, uh, the, the internet had to tell me this, uh, but it comes
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  from the Latin word Adventus.
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  Now,
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  Adventus means the arrival of something wonderful
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  and whilst the majority of the world uses it for December, which I appreciate and
• 3:41
  think is a good thing, I also now think.
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  Uh, understanding that if it's the arrival of something wonderful,
• 3:46
  that can happen anywhere, can't it?
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  With a birthday, with an anniversary, um, even on random Tuesdays, you know,
• 3:53
  where someone needs reminding that they are special and that they are loved Now.
• 4:01
  Uh, I know that, uh, not everyone right has these sort of warm,
• 4:06
  fuzzy Christmas memories.
• 4:09
  Uh, for some of you, this season is complicated and possibly even painful.
• 4:13
  And if that's you, I'm sorry.
• 4:15
  God bless you.
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  This is not meant to gloss over that in any way.
• 4:20
  But I was fortunate, um, very fortunate as a kid, I have really
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  good memories of Christmas growing up.
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  And this year, like I say, thinking about advent, those memories did
• 4:30
  come flooding back in the best way.
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  So in this spirit of Christmas, and because, because I just really can't help
• 4:38
  myself if I'm honest, uh, I, I started to think, well, how does eCommerce
• 4:43
  connect with the nativity story now?
• 4:46
  Listen, um, I am, uh, personally a man of faith, so this isn't me
• 4:50
  poking fun at something sacred.
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  Definitely not that right?
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  But there are some genuinely.
• 4:56
  Interesting parallels between the Christmas story and
• 5:01
  running an e-commerce business.
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  Now stay with me 'cause this is, these interesting parallels
• 5:06
  are, well, they're tenuous.
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  Let's be real.
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  But that's okay because it's Christmas, right?
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  And so, uh, I think we're allowed to be slightly tenuous on Christmas.
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  Uh, so let's get into it, shall we?
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  I thought this would just be, you know, a warm.
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  Sort of way to do a Christmas Day podcast.
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  That's a bit of fun.
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  That's not as long, but just brings a nice Christmas sort of feel to the
• 5:30
  eCommerce Podcast, so bear with me.
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  First we have the shepherds.
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  Okay?
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  Now, the shepherds were, well, they were humble workers out in the field
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  watching their flocks at night.
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  Now, we used to sing as kids.
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  Uh, they washed their socks at night.
• 5:47
  Um, because, you know, that was funny and it still is, but let's
• 5:50
  be, you know, whether they watched their socks or watched their flocks,
• 5:53
  they're not exactly the right target demographic for an
• 5:57
  announcement for a royal birth.
• 6:00
  Right.
• 6:01
  Um, so if you are thinking about doing a big product launch, you're like, you
• 6:04
  identify who your niche market is, who are the best people to announce that?
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  Who are the influencers in that sector that we could use yet you wouldn't
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  have picked the shepherds, right?
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  For this, because for.
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  Well, they were societies, undesirables, let's just put it that way.
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  Yet they were chosen and it's interesting because they became the
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  first evangelist to this whole affair.
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  They find the baby Jesus.
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  They see what has happened and they're so moved by it and so connected to it.
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  They immediately started telling everyone what they had seen and
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  the Bible to this Bible story.
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  Bible story.
• 6:38
  Lemme get that right.
• 6:39
  Politics aside, uh, tells us that.
• 6:41
  All who heard marveled at what the shepherds told them, people were
• 6:47
  marveling, uh, at both the message and the fact that shepherds were telling it.
• 6:53
  And so I wonder if Right, your early customers are a bit like mine in the
• 6:57
  sense that they might not be the best.
• 7:01
  Influencers, but they're the ones who discovered you before you were polished.
• 7:07
  Before you had fancy branding and proper email sequences.
• 7:11
  They found something genuine, uh, about you and they
• 7:14
  couldn't stop talking about it.
• 7:16
  And these early adopters, your shepherds if you like, they're
• 7:20
  not the fancy influencers with the high follow account, but the ones.
• 7:25
  Who authentically spread your story in a way that no
• 7:30
  marketing budget could ever buy.
• 7:33
  I remember at Jersey we had one of these ladies who wrote blogs,
• 7:37
  um, just about her experience.
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  It bought in tens of thousands of pounds worth of sales every month, and this
• 7:44
  was just a small, little beautiful lady who was blogging in another
• 7:47
  country and they're out there right now telling people about your business
• 7:52
  whilst you are eating Christmas dinner.
• 7:55
  They're not out there demanding free samples, free products, you know,
• 7:59
  and media rights and all that sort of stuff we get with influencers.
• 8:03
  They are genuinely connected to your brand and I think they
• 8:07
  are worth remembering today.
• 8:09
  Uh, and just being grateful for them, you know, now.
• 8:15
  That's the shepherds.
• 8:16
  What about the manger?
• 8:17
  Again, tenuous.
• 8:18
  I get it, but hopefully you're sticking with me.
• 8:20
  Jesus, as we know in the story, was laid in a manger, a feeding trough,
• 8:24
  something that fed the animals.
• 8:26
  He was wrapped in a cloth and it's not exactly, uh, the
• 8:30
  expected birthplace for a king.
• 8:32
  Yeah.
• 8:32
  You know, I'm sure we could do better than that goes.
• 8:35
  Yeah.
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  What happened was.
• 8:37
  The wise men still bought their finest gifts, didn't they?
• 8:41
  They recognise the true worth beyond the humble circumstances.
• 8:45
  And what's this gotta do with the story, man?
• 8:47
  What's this gotta do with e-commerce?
• 8:49
  Well, your e-commerce business might not look impressive compared to say you
• 8:53
  are well funded competitors, you know?
• 8:56
  Your tech stack might be held together with, I don't know, hope and Zapier.
• 9:03
  Oh, I love laughing at my own jokes.
• 9:04
  Now, your warehouse might be your garage, I don't know.
• 9:07
  But excellence isn't about having the fanciest infrastructure.
• 9:11
  It is about faithfully serving your mission with whatever resources you have.
• 9:18
  Now, the manger was definitely sufficient for its purpose, right?
• 9:21
  Held the baby.
• 9:22
  Um, so is your scrappy, bootstrap operation.
• 9:26
  You know, as long as you are genuinely serving your customers well.
• 9:30
  I don't think we, I think we give too much credence to it.
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  Sometimes it's sufficient.
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  For now, let's see what the next year brings.
• 9:38
  Right.
• 9:38
  And third, and perhaps my favorite part of the Christmas story is in fact, Joseph.
• 9:44
  He is probably my hero actually in the nativity.
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  He barely gets any lines, doesn't he, in the school play and almost
• 9:52
  no dialogue in the Bible itself.
• 9:53
  But watch what he does, right?
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  He responds to, as the story would tell us angelic direction.
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  He takes Mary as his wife when it would've been easier not to.
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  He travels to Bethlehem for the census and he flees to Egypt
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  when he is warned and he returns.
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  Is told that it is safe.
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  So what's this got to do with the eCommerce business?
• 10:18
  Well, each decision, uh, with Joseph required faith
• 10:21
  and pretty immediate action.
• 10:23
  If I'm honest with you, there's no fanfare.
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  No real recognition, just quiet, faithful execution of
• 10:29
  what was asked of him, really.
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  And any commerce.
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  I think we all need to be a bit more like Joseph because
• 10:37
  execution trumps intention every single time.
• 10:41
  You can have brilliant strategies and beautiful brand guidelines
• 10:45
  and ambitious growth plans.
• 10:46
  2026 is coming up, man.
• 10:48
  We are gonna kill it, but without disciplined follow through.
• 10:53
  Fulfilling orders accurately responding to customers properly, showing
• 10:57
  up consistently, day in, day out.
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  I think your business stalls and Joe's reliability in doing what was asked, even
• 11:05
  when difficult or inconvenient, I think model something that we can all learn from
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  A man of quiet faithfulness, just doing the work without needing the spotlight.
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  So why am I telling you all of this?
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  Partly because it's Christmas and I can, and it's just a great story, but mostly
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  because I just wanted to say thank you and just encourage you this Christmas.
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  Thank you for being part of this community here at EP.
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  Whether you've been listening since the beginning, as I know a lot of you have.
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  Or you stumbled onto this particular episode and it's your first time with
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  us, whether you've implemented everything we've ever talked about on all the shows.
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  I, if you have, I really want to hear from you.
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  Uh, or whether you're just like having something in your ears
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  while you pack your orders.
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  I don't know.
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  You are here.
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  That definitely means something to me.
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  So, you know, lemme just encourage you because running an e-commerce
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  business, I think can be lonely.
• 12:00
  The algorithm changes.
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  Don't care that you were up at two o'clock in the morning with a sick child.
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  The suppliers don't know about your cashflow, stress.
• 12:08
  The customers don't even see the 17 problems that you solved before breakfast.
• 12:13
  But I think in this community, we all get it.
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  We are all digital.
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  Davids in our own way.
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  We are all running at Giants, figuring out as we go, trying
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  to build something meaningful with the resources that we have.
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  And I'm genuinely grateful you've let me be a part of your journey this year.
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  So as you get back to whatever your Christmas Day looks like, the food,
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  the family, the chaos, the quiet,
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  I hope today has at least has a moment of that
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  Adventus feeling that something wonderful is coming
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  and I hope for you that it is because you are building it, right?
• 12:53
  One order, one customer, one small improvement at a time.
• 12:59
  So keep going.
• 13:01
  A Merry Christmas.