A little over two years back when COVID first appeared, I started giving advice around handling slow periods and recessions. Part of that advice was to create processes or a playbook for these slow times. In it you would document strategies and tactics that worked with your store. All because slow periods are common and …
Tag: strategy
Focus on a few strategies and keep your tactics a secret
While reading through my backlog, I found a post by Seth Godin that does a great job of comparing strategy and tactics. This line got me thinking: Strategies don’t change. They’re not a secret. It doesn’t matter if your peers or opponents know your strategy. Tactics, on the other hand, change often, and are usually …
Reduce the decision-making friction around marketing
This week I took the time to categorize most of my marketing tasks based on which core metrics they impact. It took awhile as I have a lot of ideas I’ve saved but the payoff has been great so far. Now I have the ability to look at my list and tell which ones I …
Only 9 weeks left in 2021 for marketing
Last week I was going through the list of books I want to read to figure out what I’d like to finish up this year. I noticed there were only 10 weeks left which means I can finish 5-20 books (depending on size, etc). That thought got lodged in my head until yesterday. I was …
Pick two to succeed
October. The month of bags of candy, leaves changing color, and the rush to get everything done before the holiday sales season starts. If you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed, try this to reduce the pressure: Pick two projects or campaigns that you want to succeed. Focus your time on them. Ignore any other project until …
Match your unique limits to your store strategies
Last Friday I went a bit crazy pruning our tomatoes. A heavy late-summer rainstorm was coming and I let the tomatoes grow a bit wild. The problem is that the tomatoes used their limited time and energy to grow more flowers and start more fruit, instead of ripening what they already had. I ended up …
Take the profits from boring things and invest them into risky things
One lesson I got from Seth Godin’s Purple Cow is: Take the profits from boring things and invest them into risky things. This can apply to your Shopify store at a number of levels. Take the profits from your best-selling products to create new products. Take the profits from your repeat customer orders and invest …
Using order volume and total sales to spot growth problems
It’s useful to see how your order volume changes over-time. It’ll give you a different perspective than total sales. Combine the two you can learn a lot about your overall business health. If your order volume has increased and your total sales have increased, you’re growing. If your order volume has increased and your total …
Start smaller projects instead
We were planning to finish our basement this winter and spring. It’s a significant space in our house and would be a great office for me. But there are only a limited number of contractors accepting projects and the prices are high right now. Too high to make it worth the investment. So we decided …
How the sale of JSON-LD for SEO helped my other Shopify app
With the sale of JSON-LD for SEO to Ilana Davis, I’ve been able to refocus on my Repeat Customer Insights app. Transferring and training took awhile, which we both knew going into it. But now that’s done, I’m finding a lot more headspace to think through the remaining changes I want to make for the …