2 Weeks to Make $1,000,000 — Here’s the Plan

[00:00:00] Luke Austin: In order for us to hit that plan of driving a million dollars in incremental revenue, what it's going to require is over the next 14 days, starting today, that we drive a million dollars more in revenue to beat that number.

So through June 15th, we are very close to comping the last year's numbers for the brand for for June. So in order to beat those numbers by a million dollars, we've got another 14 days to drive an incremental million dollars in revenue. And to do that, of course. Profitably because we don't do things any other way here at CDC.

[00:00:33] Richard Gaffin: Hey folks. Welcome to the Ecommerce Playbook Podcast. I'm your host, Richard Gaffin, Director of Digital Product Strategy here at Common Thread Collective. And I'm joined today by our sometime war reporter and VP of Ecommerce Strategy, Luke Austin, who's here to share kind of a crazy challenge that he's doing over the next 14 days.

But first off, Luke, how are you doing, man?

[00:00:53] Luke Austin: I'm, I'm doing great. I am hyped about what we are about to embark on over the course of the next couple weeks and really what will be, I think, unprecedented access and look into what we do on a day-to-day basis in partnering with our brands and, and accomplishing their business objectives. So I'm excited for it.

[00:01:14] Richard Gaffin: Yeah, that's exactly right. So if you love competition, if you love taking risks, this is gonna be a lot of fun. So let's I, I'm gonna kinda lay out exactly what this is, what we're calling, this is the million and 14 days challenge. And so what we're gonna be doing is taking a, a specific client. We're not gonna reveal names, but we're allowed to reveal their numbers.

And we're gonna take a specific client that we're working on here at CTC and Luke is going to, on a daily basis, walk us through. The changes that he's making in order to get to a million more in revenue over the next 14 days. So to kind of set the stage the goal this year is to beat last year's June by a million. where we sit right now here, it's as we're talking it's June 16th. We are, we still need a million in revenue to get to that goal. So by the end of the month, by the time July starts, goal is to get, and his team is to get this particular client a million in revenue.

And Luke is going to, on a daily basis, film himself essentially executing this, right, showing our STA dashboard and all of the data or all the metrics associated with it, and walking us through all the changes that they're making to make this happen. And he is gonna be dropping it. Particularly on YouTube shorts every single day over the next 14 days.

So that's what it is. But Luke, give us a little bit more context about this challenge and about some of the ways that you're gonna be approaching it.

[00:02:31] Luke Austin: Yeah, so what we've done for June is partnering with this brand. We've built a plan that in June of this year, results in a million dollars more in revenue than June of last year. That's 97, little over 97% more revenue year over year. So substantial year over year performance for the business, and in order for us to hit that plan of driving a million dollars in incremental revenue, what it's going to require is over the next 14 days, starting today, that we drive a million dollars more in revenue to beat that number.

So through June 15th, we are very close to comping the last year's numbers for the brand for for June. So in order to beat those numbers by a million dollars, we've got another 14 days to drive an incremental million dollars in revenue. And to do that, of course. Profitably because we don't do things any other way here at CDC.

And so what we'll be doing is every day dropping in a short easily consumable video on where we stand month to date in the context of the business objectives where the prior day landed. And what we do here at CTC is we build a p and l level forecast that then has daily targets for over 50 critical business and marketing metrics that we track against daily, as well as have every planned marketing calendar moment in action out.

Within our systems that we can see every day, how did we land against the expectation? Where specifically are we short? And then what do we need to go to execute on to bridge the gap to goal and to beat the goal that we have in driving the million dollars in 14 days. And to clarify, I'll be walking through the videos, kind of setting up things, talking about what we're doing.

And then there is a team of folks on the CTC side as well as on the brand side that is is executing against this on a daily basis. Helping to make this happen has done all the work in terms of the marketing calendar moments as well. So there are many, many folks that are actually, that have actually set this up to be a possibility within the month of June, and I'll be.

Walking through the narrative, identifying the areas of opportunity, and then every day providing an update on how are we progressing against the goal and how did we do in executing against the priorities that we set out in the day prior.

[00:04:47] Richard Gaffin: That's right. So, let's, let's give the folks just a little taste. So obviously you've set up the, kind of the context of what you're doing, but how much of a stretch is this, do you think you can do it?

[00:04:58] Luke Austin: So I'll say, I'll say a couple things. Like I mentioned we're already through the month of June pacing ahead of last year's numbers, which, which is great. That said. This is, this is a substantially higher outcome for even the best performing D two c e-commerce brands in June of 2025 to drive 97% year over year revenue growth in a time period like this, and to do so in a profitable manner.

Is a feat that I think any DTC e-comm, founder, owner, operator, marketer, agency, et cetera, should be interested in seeing how brands like this set up, set up success like this. The brand that we are working with is doing really great work across their across their products, across the marketing calendar.

And, and many other things which, which sets this up. We are, our goal is to match that level in terms of the execution and the plan that we're setting in terms of what we're managing on the CTC side so that we can make this a reality. But this is, this is an aggressive outcome for, for any brand, even the best of brands in, in, in this time.

And the other, the second piece of context is that it is going to come down to. Some of the big marketing moments that we have planned in the execution against those coming up in just a number of days here for, for the brand. So I think it's a really good view into day-to-day execution against the goal, what it looks like to show up every dollar every day and make sure that we are not leaving anything on the table.

And then in addition to that. How do we execute against a big product driven marketing story that drives outsized growth like this? What did that look in terms of the planning? What does that look like in terms of the execution? So I think it's going to be an interesting next working news to say the least.

[00:06:45] Richard Gaffin: Yeah, definitely. Well, I was gonna ask as my next question, sort of what, what gives you the hubris to think that you can do this? But I do think that like one of the, the pieces of context that you pointed out there is important, which is that there's already been some work done, set up kind of. On quote unquote the backend in terms of the marketing calendar from the brand side to get this particular drop set up.

So this kind of outsized result, as you're saying, would just not be possible without some kind of big marketing calendar thing. But it's up to us to kind of demonstrate, like, in order to hit this goal, this thing needs to be in place, but the daily execution needs to be there as well, alongside the planning in order to make this this million dollar outcome happen over the next 14

[00:07:23] Luke Austin: Yep, that's exactly right. And, and there's going to be probably every day there are going to be areas that we beat goal and areas that we miss against the objective. And it's gonna come down to us understanding why we are be ahead or behind, and where specifically that is coming from, so that we can go in action and remedy, remedy against it.

So the, it's not a let's see where we land in 14 days. And if we get there, great. We won't exactly know. How if you don't get there, bummer, but we don't exactly know what went wrong. Our goal is, is absolute clarity on what landed ahead or behind target so that we can go in action and help to bridge any of the gaps that exist.

[00:08:04] Richard Gaffin: Awesome. All right. Well, I'm, I'm stoked to see what happens here. I think this is the fascinating idea, and for all of you out there, follow along on a daily basis. So the first episode, I believe of this million and 14 Days challenge drops on Wednesday, which is tomorrow by the time you're listening to this. So check it out. Be on YouTube shorts. It'll be on all our socials. You can follow along there. But yeah, Luke, any, anything else that you wanna hit on this,

[00:08:28] Luke Austin: No, let's just, let's see, let's see what we can do. And we'll, we'll, as you mentioned, we'll be Rena remaining anonymous during this, during this whole thing in terms of the, the specific brand. But I'd be remiss if I didn't do an anonymous shout out to them. It's incredible brand. Obviously there are.

Depending on where we land this month, it's, it's gonna be an incredible month for them anyways. They've, they've laid that foundation, they built something really special, so anonymous. Shout out to those folks. We're excited to partner with them and hopefully, hopefully help to make it happen.

[00:08:56] Richard Gaffin: Awesome. All right, well looking forward to it. Alright, folks, tomorrow the first episode's dropped. Looks out for that. This is gonna be a fascinating and unprecedented look into the daily process here at Common Thread Collective and how an e-commerce brand can achieve such an outsized goal. Alright until next time, everybody take care.