Ecommerce Growth: The 3-Pillar Framework We Use

[00:00:00] Richard: Hey, folks. Welcome to the Ecommerce Playbook podcast. I'm your host, Richard Gaffan, director of digital product strategy here at Common Thread Collective. And I'm joined today, uh, by Mr. Luke Austin, who is our VP of ecommerce strategy here at Common Thread, uh, to talk to us about a couple of things, but mainly, uh, his big fish story.

[00:00:16] But before we get to that, um, Luke, how are you doing, man?

[00:00:20] Luke: Yeah, I'm doing great. Good. Coming, coming back from a, from a little fishing excursion. Uh, and, um, and this, this time of year is always, always an interesting one, where you have, like, the, like, week and a half of the lull of Q3, you know, like maybe- Hmm

[00:00:36] if you're lucky. Of like, uh, okay, we're in between the end of season stuff and 4th of July, and then Q4 hits right away. So never, never, never a dull moment. Glad for, glad for a few days getting out, getting out on the water and, uh- Yeah ... happy to be back in the saddle as always as well.

[00:00:52] Richard: Yeah, of course. So let's, uh...

[00:00:53] So yesterday we had, uh, our big town hall for kind of H2, Q3, Q4. And, um, so part of what we were doing there and, and what you were sort of presenting to us as a group was defining our goals and sort of the specific methods that we need to use to hit them. And you kind of framed it up in, in a literal big fish story, which I thought was awesome, 'cause you and your dad, I think, went out on a fishing expedition and caught what is frankly an outrageous amount of enormous fish.

[00:01:21] Uh, so I w- before we hit record here, I was asking if that was luck or skill, but it sounds like... Wait, actually, so where were you guys- Skill ... uh, at? All skill. Yeah. Of c- so A, of course it was skill, but where, where exactly were y'all fishing?

[00:01:32] Luke: Yeah, so yeah. And, and for those listening, this, we're gonna do a little story time here.

[00:01:37] Yeah. So if you're interested to hear about, uh, Sitka, Alaska fishing for a few minutes- That's right ... and then tying it into one of the things I've been reflecting on as it relates to that trip and how it ties into three of the most critical things that, that we've seen be necessary for e-commerce brands to be able to grow effectively, that, that's what we're getting to, um, in this.

[00:01:55] And, uh, we're gonna be talking about fish for a few minutes, and then tie it into the big-bigger thing. But we-- So yeah, my, my dad and I went to Sitka, Alaska. My dad's, um, big, big fisherman. He's grown up fishing a lot and, and, and I, and I went fishing with him too growing up. Um, uh, but we talked about doing this trip for a while.

[00:02:10] So we were in Sitka, Alaska, the, um, the site of the movie Proposal, um, and then if you're familiar- Mm-hmm ... with Snow Dogs as well. That's-- I think those are two- That's right ... S-Sitka's two claim to fames as it relates to public, uh, um, pop, pop culture. But, um, flew, flew in, small town Alaska, um, and it's a three-day fishing trip.

[00:02:32] We're out there for, we're out there for about 12 hours a day just on the boat catching fish. Um, and it was absolutely incredible. Um, it was like... It, and it's also like a negative CAC, um, experience because we came back with a little over 90 pounds of fresh fish, fish filets. Black cod or butterfish, uh, um, sablefish, uh, uh, a lot of different l- salmon, Alaskan king, um, uh, and, uh, and halibut as well, and then some, some bass.

[00:03:01] So like over 90 pounds of fish filets, which, like, covers the cost of the trip. So I couldn't, I couldn't recommend this, recommend this trip enough. And you're out there, like, you're out there on the water- Um, off the coast of Sitka, and you have your, you're reeling in fish, um, and you have the breeze coming through, the ship's rocking, um, and you're seeing packs of orcas go through the water.

[00:03:24] Wow. We had a little juvenile great white swimming around the, swimming around the boat for w- for a minute. Too many humpback whales to even count circling around. Uh, there was a, a whale that had gotten hit by a cruise ship unfortunately and had washed- Hmm ... up on one of the coasts. And, um, and our, our captain heard about it, so we cruised around there, and there was a pack of bears, uh, eating the whale- Whoa.

[00:03:45] that had like washed... Like, it just gnarly stuff. Crazy, yeah. Like you're out there, and like the, the National Geog- Geographic ship, like the, like the, that was like out there, like we're... And so you're out there like reeling in fish, just like seeing orcas jump. It's, it's incredible. It was just an incredible, incredible experience, um, that, uh, was, was oddly tiring days as well.

[00:04:05] A lot of like your, a lot of core strength and, uh, a lot of core... Am I cutting out?

[00:04:32] Yeah, and oddly, oddly tiring days too. You're-- a lot of core strength, c- calf strength, just holding yourself in the boat while reeling in, reeling in big Alaskan kings. It was, yeah, an, an incredible trip. Um, and, and sort of for a lot of reflection time as well coming back from the trip, but, uh, but, but grateful for it.

[00:04:49] It was, uh, yeah, it was an incredible, incredible time out there.

[00:04:51] Richard: Yeah. That's awesome. So part of what kind of happened over the course of this trip is it, it kind of inspired you sort of thinking through some of the ways we need to approach as an agency our goals for this second half. And so that-- part of the, the reason we wanted you on today was to kind of tell that story here and make that connection, um, for everyone listening to the pod right now.

[00:05:14] So talk a little bit about kind of what you were explaining to us yesterday and how, what you sort of realized over the course of that trip.

[00:05:21] Luke: So the-- wh- when I came back from the trip, um, the, uh, probably 20 times, uh, over the course of the, you know, days following was posed the question: How was the trip?

[00:05:34] How, how was the fishing trip? Um, and it's, it's interesting, when you're asked the same question so many different times, it like, uh, at least for me, like, I try to think about different ways to answer the question or really, like, reflect on it and, uh, and orient around, like, how do I even a-answer this question?

[00:05:50] How, how was the trip? Well, that's, that's interesting. What are, what are the cri- what are the criteria? What is the like-- what is my feeling as it relates to that question and what I, what I had expected as well? Um, and so-- and it got me thinking about, like, um, for the brands that we partner with and for e-commerce brands in general, when you're running, when you're running a business, the, the, uh, answering the question around is the outcome we're getting good or not?

[00:06:14] Are you satisfied with the outcome? Are you satisfied with the trajectory of your business and the outcomes that you're getting? Um- How are things going for your e-commerce brand? Uh, is a, is a really, can be a really loaded question, right? Like, there's a lot of different- Mm-hmm ... ways we can answer that question.

[00:06:31] And what I came, what I came down to is there were three things that, in reflecting on my fishing trip, were like these three things needed to be true for the outcome of the fishing trip to be what it was, which is it was an incredible experience and like how, how I actually can reflect on that. Um, and those three things are like there's, there's direct parallels of those three things being, uh, in place, um, uh, generally in terms of concepts as like, okay, a-answering the question: how are things going with your brand?

[00:07:00] Is it good or bad or otherwise? Um, and how are you-- what's your framework for, uh, your framework for answering that question? So, I'll talk about the fishing trip first, and I'll tie this into how we think about answering this question for e-com brands, like how are you doing? How are things going, um, for, for the business?

[00:07:17] So for the trip, um, there were sort of three things at the center of this question of how, how was the fishing trip and what was the outcome and what made it be the success that it was looking back on it? Like why, why do I feel that this was an incredible trip and actually have conviction that it, that it, um, that it was in, in assessing that.

[00:07:35] So the, the first thing that was absolutely necessary is we needed the right equipment and tools for this fishing trip to be what it was. Um, we, uh, we were on a charter boat, um, with a captain. This, that's a whole sort of other topic. These, these, these captains are incredible. They, they spent, you know, 10, 15 years as deckhands learning, um, the whole area, uh, and then they go and buy their own, you know, 37 to 40-foot charter boat.

[00:08:03] Um, uh, and these boats are, um, incredible machines. They cost $700,000, $800,000 and, um, finance against them, and you're working four- 14 hour days, um, seven days a week mostly over the course of the fishing, uh, season to be able to pay off the boats. Like just sort of incredible entrepreneurial, entrepreneurial spirit that, uh, that's on the, the coast of Sitka.

[00:08:24] Um, so we needed, we needed the right boat to be able to get out in the deeper water to go. When you're going for black cod, you're going 1,400 feet down. You're going to the depth of the Sears Tower, um, to get to where the black cod are, and it's in this very specific area where the gradient of the, um, the gradient of the, uh, the, the ocean floor is in a certain way in which they like.

[00:08:44] When you're going for halibut, you're about 350 to 400 feet down. When you're going for salmon, you're, you need to get into, uh, shallower water and maybe even going where some of the streams are coming out to meet the ocean. So this, this boat has to be very specific to like what you're, you're wanting to achieve and the type of fish that you're wanting to get after.

[00:09:00] And then the technology and tools that exist that are, that are, the boat is equipped with, um- Without it, it's like you're, you're, you're literally dead in the water. Like, you j- you just have nothing. Mm-hmm. You need a, a GPS, um, you need the, uh, depth finder. Like, you need, you need all these tools to be able to understand where we're at on the map, where the depth of the water is, what are the things under us in the water, and be able to detect those with sonar.

[00:09:24] Um, and then, and then you need communication as well, 'cause these captains are talking to each other all the time about what they're seeing in the water. You need to understand there's, okay, there's a great- a juvenile great white circling around our boat here, um, so that's gonna scare off the certain fish that we're going after, right?

[00:09:39] Like, the... Without this stuff, like, you, you can't... The boat can't get you to the places you need to be, and you don't have the tools and technology to even be able to make the decisions. Like, this- Mm ... this is foundational to, like, us having a good boat and having the tools that allow us to be able to make these decisions.

[00:09:53] Otherwise, like, you're, uh... And it's funny, one of the days, we had a boat that was, uh, smaller boat, older boat, less equipped boat. Um, and it was very apparent. Mm-hmm. Like, it w- it was, it was, uh, we didn't- Mm ... that was the day that we caught the least amount of fish, and it was, it was kind of the m- most disappointing day because it was like, we could tell the captain was kinda guessing around some things.

[00:10:13] Like, it just wasn't, it wasn't the same. So the, the equipment and the, the, the vessel, um, were critical. So that's thing one. Thing two, um, uh, is, relates to the expectations we had against the outcome of this trip. So there were four of us on this trip. Me and my dad, my good friend from middle school way back in the day, and then my uncle, um, who's gone on a couple of these trips and, and made some of the sort of connections for us.

[00:10:39] So there's four of us on the trip. All four of us are really close. Like it's me, my dad, and my uncle, you know, and one of my best friends. Like we're, we're... We have... But the amount of time though, despite that, that us four spent talking about what are, what we were going to do that day, what the strategy was going to be for that specific day, or even that block of time in the afternoon.

[00:11:03] We spent a lot of time having these discussions, um, because you-- We can see it, like if, uh, we have, we have a picture of like all the fish we caught on each of the day. The first day we caught, um, um, a lot more fish than the third day quantity wise. Um, we had- Mm-hmm. We, we maxed out our limit on black cod, then we maxed our limit on halibut.

[00:11:21] Then we went for some rockfish and bass, caught our limit there, and then we ended the day with salmon and caught as many salmon as we could. That's a very specific strategy to maximize sort of the limit on those fish, and then grind out as much salmon as you can, which are like the harder at this point in the year, the harder- Mm.

[00:11:37] harder fish to catch. The last day we had caught so much black cod the first two days that we didn't catch one black cod the, the final day. We didn't wanna spend time, 'cause you have to go out, you know, an hour into deeper water. We didn't wanna spend time, um, and so what we wanted to do was actually catch more salmon that day than we had any of the other days.

[00:11:57] And so we caught like half the amount of fish in terms of like the pound amount, but we got like three times amu- as much salmon as that first day on the last day. But those are to- two totally different outcomes. Like we could have done the like get three times as much fish. It's just a different composition of it versus the salmon.

[00:12:15] Like we... And, and anything in between. There, and there was other guys we were talking about in other boats where like they, two days, they just did all salmon all those days and nothing else. And it's like that's what they wanted out of the, out of the trip and the experience for themselves. So us four had to spend a lot of time in conversation with one another to get to a place where we are agreed upon, here's the plan for the day, that allowed us to get to the end of the day and not just be like Oh, wow, look at all this fish that we caught.

[00:12:41] Oh, we only have five salmon? This sucks. Mm. And right, like, and, and for it to be a bummer third of the, of the trip in terms of the allocation. Um, and then the- Mm ... the thing three, so the final piece of this, we have the... You have the equipment, you have the vessel and the technology. You have the agreement between these, the, the four people on the fishing trip around, like, what we're actually going after, what the, what the objective, uh, is and the strategy to get there.

[00:13:07] And then the third piece was the execution, which I was-- You mentioned earlier, like, was this, uh, was everyone catching this much fish or was it skill? Um, and this is like, this is my plug for, like, it did take some skill. Um, where- ... uh, like, uh, um, and I showed a video in our, in our company meeting as well, like around, around this, and I've looked past on a couple other of these.

[00:13:27] But like, specifically for salmon, we probably br- uh, reeled in, um, in terms of like the salmon being large enough, like half the amount of salmon that we could have, um- Uh, uh, because of executional errors on our, on our part. Hmm. So when you're reeling in salmon, the boat's doing a slow troll, so you're at, like, one, two miles per hour.

[00:13:48] You got a lot of tension on the rod, and the salmon's doing all this crazy stuff to try to get off the hook, right? And so you're pulling, you're pulling them in. Um, and so what you need to do is you need to keep reeling in. You need enough tension on the rod, and you need the angle to be right so that the fish doesn't get off while it's, while it's coming through.

[00:14:04] And then you have the boat rocking, so you've got to, like, gotta, like, wedge yourself in, like, a, you know, place to, like, not fall over. Um, and then when the boat gets close enough is actually when it gets-- Or the fish gets close enough to the boat is actually when it gets hardest because the fish will start to come up on the side of the boat, and then you start to relax and you're like, "Oh, the fish is right down here," and you start to give some slack in the rod, and you're like- Hmm

[00:14:24] "Oh, I've almost got it here. Cool." And the guy comes in with the net. Like, so another person on the team is, like, they're the net guy. So you gotta get down there with the net, and right when the fish is there, you don't wanna, like, break the line by poking the net. And then so you gotta, like, scoop it up in a certain direction, bring it on, and then someone's gotta take it off and, and if it's fits the limit, great, keep it.

[00:14:42] If not, it's going back in the ocean. And then there's another guy with, like, a backup pole 'cause there's another pole in the water, and he's watching that pole the whole time. So there's, like, all of this going on to make sure it's... And, and so we'd lose a bunch of fish as they got closer to the boat because they're, like, starting to s- go towards the motor.

[00:14:56] We just sort of, like, give some, you know, let off some tension 'cause we think the net guy's got it, and it jumps out right before it got into the net. Um, but the execution against this outcome, um, was, was really critical, especially for the, especially for getting on this last day what we, what we wanted to.

[00:15:12] So this- Hmm ... is, like, sort of my reflection. Like, how was the fishing trip? Um, it w- it was incredible. Um, and in particular, those first two days, we had a really great captain with a really, um, uh, equipped boat and the tools and technology that allowed us to get to where we wanted to be. We had real clear agreement on the group of us of what we were after in terms of the, the makeup of the fish and the strategy to get there and the time allocation, and then we had pretty tight execution.

[00:15:41] We didn't lose that many fish. Hmm. The, the third day Uh, not, not as much. The vessel was different. We had alignment as a group, but we didn't have the tools to, like, totally get there, so we just, we just got less salmon than we wanted, and then we lost a, a good amount of salmon on the execution side as well.

[00:15:56] So overall- Mm ... incredible trip. Without those three things, um, it would've been, uh, it could've been a flop.

[00:16:03] Richard: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, totally. This so, obviously, like, I think the metaphor is like a parent, right? It's like the tooling, the people, the strategy, and then the execution against it. But part of, like, what we were talking about yesterday is around the standard or expectation that we hold ourselves to relative to our execution for clients.

[00:16:22] So, I mean, is, is, is it just as simple as, hey, you need those three things in place, or what specifically kind of were we thinking through yesterday in terms of, like, how we approach the second half of the year?

[00:16:33] Luke: Yeah. So the, the, tho... These three core expectations, I'm gonna tie to, like, this is what we, why we do what we do at CTC and why we believe so strongly in it, um, uh, and is the, these three things are the core expectation for our people and what we communicate w- our people and what we're building around.

[00:16:51] And beyond that, like, why we've built around it so much is because we, we've just seen so many cases in which when you don't have those three things, it's very challenging to n- to know if the outcome you're driving to is a good outcome, a bad outcome, or otherwise, or to have the tools to be able to get there in an effective way.

[00:17:12] Um, and so to, to sort of draw the parallel line between this, this metaphor, and I don't know, like, how, yeah, this meta- this metaphor. I don't know. I feel like this metaphor, it's probably 'cause it's my metaphor, I feel like it holds really well, but we- we're obviously taking this to its, to its limit, so bear, bear with us here.

[00:17:27] For sure. Um, but the, but the three, the three parallels here, so- Um, what, what do you need, uh, w-what do you need as part of the system to be en- to be able to enable, uh, predictable profitable growth for your e-commerce brand? And to be able to get to the end of day and someone asks you, "Uh, how are things going with the, with the business?

[00:17:48] How are things going with the brand?" Like, and, and for you to contend with that self, these three things need to be a part of it. And, and if they're not, like, it's gonna be really challenging for you to answer that, that question- Mm-hmm ... and to orient a group of people around a specific outcome 'cause there's not gonna be visibility into it.

[00:18:02] So the first, the first piece to this is, um, a, uh, a reliable source of truth that the b- that the business operates on, um, and then the system and the methodology encompassing that. So how we, how we solve for this is, uh, it's why we've invested so much into Statlas, um, uh, because all of the data across the financial data, the order level data, um, the qualitative data, and the financial data for your business all needs to live in one place.

[00:18:32] For you to even have a starting-- Like, if we had just the depth finder sonar and not the GPS on the boat, like, it... y-you cannot operate. Like, you have the GPS and be like, "Okay, this, go to this waypoint." Well, how deep's the water? The tides, the tide goes up and down every day too. Like, you, you can't make these decisions.

[00:18:51] And so that's why these four- Mm-hmm ... the financial data, the marketing data, the order level data, and the qualitative data, um, around the marketing calendar, et cetera, are critical pieces to have in a unified system altogether. Um, because with only one or two or three of these four pieces as part of it, it becomes really challenging or near impossible to h- to make the best informed decisions.

[00:19:12] And this is really hard. We were talking with a brand that, um, that we'd all, uh, m-many of us would know and recognize, um, just last week where they- Have gone through a couple iterations of onboarding data tools, AI tools, um, uh, and a couple months ago went through a process with, with another tool to try to unify their data, um, and it failed.

[00:19:33] Like, they, they were not able to get there. It was a lot of money and effort and time, um, and they were not able to unify their data in this place. It's really, it's really hard to do. So it's, it's why we've made such an investment in Statlas and as well in the, uh, uh, the te- the team that surrounds our data integration, um, and tooling technology so that we can work with you all to get the data really right.

[00:19:56] And then in addition to that, the other thing that we, we're, we've been talking about more recently is the CTC Canon. It's the-- our methodology. It's how we do things. This is-- We're doing a series on it right now. It's li- it's live on our site. You can see it. Um, which is a agreed upon, this is how we do this specific thing.

[00:20:13] This is how we approach Facebook ads. This is how we approach Google ads, creative strategy, forecasting, media measurement, um, that forms on top of the unified data source of truth, the agreed upon methodology and approach for how we're getting there, right? This is the like, you have the boat and the tooling on the boat, and then you have like the captains all talking to the captains and agreeing on like, "Okay, the best way to catch black cod is about 1350 to 1400 feet, and you use this bait and this, this, uh, and these hooks," right?

[00:20:39] Like, that, that is the equivalent of what the canon and the methodology is to ensure that you're getting consistently the best outcome. So that's pillar one. Mm-hmm. System, reliable source of truth. The pillar two in this parallel is a shared definition of success, and the, the simplest way to think about a shared definition of success is that there is There's data that everyone agrees that this data is accurate, and everyone's looking in one place to, to be able to assess whether the business is on track or off track relative to its expectation.

[00:21:11] Having one, one shared definition of success is here's the goal, here's where we're gonna look to see how we're doing against the goal, um, is a simple thing that's also very, very challenging to get to. Um, various-- As the groups get bigger, you, you tend to have, like, different people start to look in different places, and the marketing team's like, "We're looking at these reports and these platforms," and the fi-finance team is l- they have, "We have a daily P&L."

[00:21:35] And without a shared definition of success, you're gonna get to the end of the month, end of the quarter, end of the year, and everyone's like, "How did we do?" And, like, this group's gonna be like, "Oh, well, based on this, we did pretty good." This group's like, "Well, based on this other thing, we did good, but based on that, we didn't."

[00:21:48] Like, you, you don't have a shared definition of what we're after. What we've built in our system is this, is the, the home dashboard where we look at every day and what the profit engineer orients the work and the team around is the home dash and stat list where we have contribution margin a-at the top, and we have daily targets for every metric that ladder down from contribution margin to rev, to your new and returning customer cohorts, to each of your marketing channels.

[00:22:11] We have daily targets for each of these metrics, and we've aligned across everyone, from the profit engineer to the marketing team to the finance team to the CEO of the business. Our goal is X amount of contribution margin dollars this, this month for this business, and we can see how we're tracking against that.

[00:22:27] If we get there-

[00:22:28] Richard: Mm-hmm ...

[00:22:29] Luke: then that is good, and we have skin in the game related to our, our fee and our variable tied with that, tied with that outcome. This is like the equivalent of the four of us sitting in the boat having conversations of like, "Okay, do we wanna make some trade-off of, like, the black cod for the salmon today?

[00:22:43] Is that the, you know, like, do we wanna push a little more revenue for a little less CM?" Like, that's, that's the, uh- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm ... that's the trade-off, right? Um, and then the final, final piece, the relentless execution to make it, make it a reality You w- you need a clearly defined workflow for every piece of how, uh, of what drives the outcome for, um, for, for a brand.

[00:23:06] You need a, you need an agreed-upon workflow and system for managing against your marketing calendar, your ad plan, your email plan, the ad log that connects to how we p- how we publish a high volume of creatives into the meta account, um, driving that, uh, MMM, and incrementality geo holdout testing. You need to find tools that are able to, um, uh, uh, that folks are b- are able to be equipped with to actually drive this outcome on a daily basis, so that we can see here's our shared definition of success, here's how we're pacing against it, here's the actions we're gonna take in e-each of these areas to be able to, to be able to drive, um, drive that- Mm-hmm

[00:23:43] uh, that outcome forward. And okay, the, you know, the, the, uh, the person managing the net, um, on the, you know, pulling, pulling them in, we're getting too much slack as they're coming in, and so they're jumping out of the net. Okay, so what that, what that means is we need to, we need to alter direction in this way.

[00:23:59] Let's bring fish on the right side of the boat, and let's approach it this way. Mm-hmm. Okay, that, that, that email and that ad campaign didn't drive as much revenue as it we expected. We need to slot in these additional, um, pieces into the plan tomorrow or in two days to be able to make up the gap. You need that tight of an executional system, workflow, and team to be able to, um, actually make that outcome a reality.

[00:24:23] Richard: Yeah. Yeah. And, and the one thing too is like, it's, it's probably clear though, but like each of those pillars is reliant on the other or on the previous one in order to actually come to pass, right? Like y- in order to execute, you need pillars one and two in place. Which is to say like you start with, does everybody believe that this is the truth, right?

[00:24:42] Like you're saying, a single source of truth that you can trust, that everybody trusts, that everybody agrees is quote unquote right. Right? And then the second tier of that is like, once you have an understanding of what's right, then you can become clear on like which number going up is good, which number going down is bad, right?

[00:24:56] Like you have a very clear sense of what that is, and then you can execute against that because you have some understanding like this metric went up or down, therefore we need to take this, uh, action against it, right? If you don't have the first two in place, then there's really no point. And I feel like a lot of brands will just, out of almost a sense of necessity, skip to part three.

[00:25:15] Like well, whatever. We don't have the right ship. We'll just go out anyway. Um, we don't, we don't n-not necessarily agreed on how much salmon we should get, whatever. We're like, we'll get some fish and see what happens. But actually, like you have to have those things in place first. One other thing that I think is You know, we've already taken this metaphor way out to sea, but we'll take it even, even farther here, is the, uh, is the, the role of the captain too, which is i- interesting, which maybe what we're saying here is that's sort of the profit engineer.

[00:25:41] I, I had a friend who did salmon fishing in Alaska for like three months when he was in college, and his captain was called Gandalf by everybody in the fishing community in Alaska because he, because he was a wizard. They, the other boats would basically follow to wherever he went because he had an intuitive sense of where the fish were, right?

[00:26:00] And even though it's not quite that, there is still a sense of like you need to have an operator at the helm who understands the entire system and has, you know, uh, with, with the, uh, our agency as a collective, we have like 15 years of experience with this actually. So you have that sort of level of experience.

[00:26:17] And then again, in the metaphor, the people doing the fishing are maybe the client in terms of sort of like the execution. So it's about having like the right person at the helm as well, I think, um, which is important.

[00:26:27] Luke: Yes.

[00:26:27] Richard: Part of it. But I guess, you know, what, what the point here is, is those three pillars need to be the expectation, and that's kind of the point you were making yesterday.

[00:26:34] That like our expectation for whether our people are doing a good or bad job is based on are they Doing what's necessary to put all three pillars in place, and I think our sort of contention is that you, your brand should do the same in order to achieve the goals you want. Yes. Um, yeah.

[00:26:52] Luke: Yes, and this is what we-- And so this, this, why we share this in the, in the meeting with the organization yesterday is, like, we're-- This is, this is the expectation.

[00:27:02] We're all renewing our commitment to this. And then for-- with our customers as well, we, we have this, we have this agreement. And our-- In the partnerships that work best, we have this agreement very explicit, which is for these three things, to boil it down, that we are committing to getting all the data accurate in Statlas so that we can-- so that this can serve as the source of truth for everyone across these dimensions.

[00:27:24] And we are committing to, uh, the CTC canon as the approach for how we do things based on, um, our, uh, our 12-plus years of, uh, of experience. So that's, that's one. We're, we're committing to Statlas and having all the data in there, and that data's accurate and working to get it accurate and in the CTC canon.

[00:27:42] Two, we're committing to every month, every quarter, every year, we have a shared definition of success that is the target that gets locked in that we're gonna operate against it. We build a forecast, we build a plan, and we all agree and hold hands, this is what success looks like for this time period. And then third, we're agreeing that the job, our job is now to make that forecast a reality collectively, and we all play a role in that, um, and we are going to orchestrate what that looks like.

[00:28:08] And there is contribution from all the parties as it relates to who's owning the channels. But the goal is we have this expectation that's now just a number and a tool, and what-- and the execution needs to happen, ha-happen to make it a reality, and we're going to use every lever at our disposal to be able to make that a reality.

[00:28:24] If we're off plan, that's expected. Forecasts are always wrong. Now we need to go and do new things to be able to, to be able to adjust our trajectory. That's the commitment that we have. That's what's necessary in term, in terms of driving successful outcomes for e-commerce brands, and that's the agreements that we have with our customers and the partnerships that are most effective to have the baseline of, of each of those pieces at play so that we can actually execute and build a plan against it.

[00:28:51] And then, and we get to the end, and we look back and we say Great. That was a f-- that was an incredible month. And we have these, we have these, uh, w- we have these, um, we, we highlight these things as well in terms of the, the, our, our conversations with our customers and the feedback, feedback they, they share.

[00:29:08] One, um, uh, and, and, and it always, the alignment between the expectation that we set out together, tracking against it every day to make it a reality, and then achieving it at the end and being able to say, "Here's the thing we set out to do. Did we achieve it, yes or no? Yes, we did," and everyone is happy and, uh, and has the, you know, shared perspective on, yes, that was, that was a success.

[00:29:31] It's like a, it's a really, uh, uh, it's a, it's a really helpful, it's a really helpful thing to have to orient around a group of people, and a necessary thing to have. And, and to get to the end of it of like we, we again, we've all had this, like your vacation or like you just got married and come back from the honeymoon or like you, or like you have a, you know, Black Friday, Cyber Monday with your brand.

[00:29:52] Whatever it is, like these like periods and it's like, "Hey, how, how was it? How are things going with you?" Like, "How, how was the fishing trip?" Mm-hmm. "How, hey, how was, how has the first half of the year been for the business?" And like, if it's not very clear on if it was a miss or not relative to what the measure is, and then also not clear on what the plan is to be able to change that trajectory relative to your feeling around it, like that's what we wanna do first and foremost- Yeah

[00:30:17] is help to get clarity with you around what that should look like, and then partner, partner with you in some capacity against the execution in whatever format most helpful.

[00:30:26] Richard: Yeah. All right, folks. Well, that's, uh, that's our literal fishing story for you today. If you wanna come and catch some with us, to continue the metaphor, uh, commentaryco.com, uh, hit the hire us button, let us know that you're interested in building this system.

[00:30:39] We would love to talk to you about it more. Um, all right, but I think that'll do it for us. Luke, appreciate you joining us, everybody else listening out there, thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.

[00:30:48] Bye.