E-Commerce Speaks - Episode 6: The 8 Dimensions of E-Commerce - with Sabir Semerkant

The 8 Dimensions of E-Commerce - Short Summary

In this episode of E-Commerce Speaks, we talk with Sabir Semerkant, E-commerce advisor, lecturer and author. Sabir’s 8 Dimension Method for e-commerce success has helped to generate over $1 Billion in sales, and in this episode we get into all the nitty gritty details about making it work for you.

We also discuss:

• Sabir’s Rapid 2x program for hands-on e-commerce advice
• Sabir’s beginnings as an Internet consultant for Jim Cramer and Tommy Hilfiger
• The importance of storytelling in marketing

…and more!

Transcript of the episode

SAM
Hello everyone and welcome to E-commerce speaks with ROI Hunter. Today
on the podcast I am delighted to have Sabir Semerkant. E-commerce advisor, lecturer and author. Sabir, thank you so much for joining us today.

SABIR
Thank you, Sam, for having me.

SAM
All right. So now just before we get into anything, could you give me a little introduction about yourself and your business?

SABIR
Sure. I'm one of those OGs. You know, I have one of those deceptive baby faces. People think I'm very young. I'm not. You know, I have been in the Ecom. I'm in the Ecom business for 25 plus years. 

So literally from the birth of Ecom as an industry, I was there, you know, and to to to make, kind of show my age I beta tested Google when I was at Stanford. So that's how long I've been in this game, you know, and and consistently over time, I have managed to grow incremental revenue of $1 billion for all the companies that I've touched in my career over $1 billion, you know, and over time that I have perfected a methodology.

I call it the eight method, it's eight dimensions of ecommerce, where you if you optimize those eight dimensions, you you get explosive growth and we can go through some case studies and we can go through some examples in exactly what 8-D method is.

SAM
Excellent. Yeah, I would love to get into that probably. Yeah, in our next topic. But before we go on to that, I wanted to ask you what what got you started with ecommerce. You say you're, you're an O.G. in it, you've been in it 25 years now. What, what drew you to the field?

SABIR
So interestingly enough, this is going back even further back, right? I was a so coming out of college, I was a computer scientist. So I've written millions
and millions of lines of code right.

That was Sabir after I pivoted to becoming this growth hacker, you know that I am right now, right? So when when I was going through that, there was a pivot point in my career that I was part of a big six consulting firm, like management consulting firm. It was one of the Big six, you know, and I saw the Internet trend coming about. 

So before ecommerce, Internet trend coming about, right? So it's like, you know,
when you meet a person at a party in 2024 and they say, Oh, I'm into blockchain or NFTs or you give them that crazy look, right? I was on the receiving end of that
when I talked about Internet and how great Internet was, because everybody was if they knew, they knew about BBS forums, dial ups, AOL, stuff like that. But they didn't understand Internet at all, and I was well immersed in it.

So I walk up to the partner in charge at this big consulting firm. I don't want to name the company because I don't want people to reference that part, you know.  So I said that, Hey, you know, we should come up with an Internet consulting practice, right? This is huge. It’s huge.

At that time, I was doing client server coding development and stuff like that. That's what the at that time technology was the greatest thing that it's after mainframe but before internet. So that middle part right. So that's what I was doing. I had clients like U.S. Army. I had, you know, you know, a lot of a lot of different company, you know, companies needing that help. And I was doing a great job as a coder developing these systems and stuff like that.

So I walked up to him. I said, the Internet is a huge thing. Let's do it, right? And mind you, well, you know, if I'm a baby face at this age, I'm 51, by the way, right? If I'm a babyface like this. Back then when I was when I was 22, I looked like a 12 year old, right. A 12 year old talking to a partner in charge of a Big 6 consulting firm. Nobody takes you seriously, right?

So as the Internet is becoming a huge thing, it's like, you know, you go like, Oh, yeah, he has shiny eyes. You know, he's seen a shiny object. That's what he's thinking. I said, No, this is a pretty serious thing. The whole world is going to be Internet based. You know, it's going to be this is something we need to get into.

The guy goes like, you know what? We are more conservative. You know, this is not something that we want to get into. So I felt defeated. So literally, like after I, you know, dusted off that that feeling I got off, I got up and I went back two or three days later, later to to talk to the partner, I said, I strongly think that Internet is going to be a huge thing. And because I believe in it so much, I'm going to become an Internet consultant.

He was like, there is no such thing. I said, No, I'm going to make it a such a thing, right? And then I said, I'm sorry, but I'm also rendering my resignation.

SAM
Wow. 

SABIR
So I resigned from that, you know, at the trajectory I was going at. I was a senior consultant. I was going at a trajectory of potentially they saw me as the future of the firm. Right. I could have become a partner in charge in five years, you know, something like that. I said, no, that's not what I want to do, you know?

Well, as soon as I left, I had two clients as Internet consultants. I had Jim Cramer, the Street com, and I had Tommy Hilfiger, two of them. Two of them signed up with me to say, Oh, this guy is interesting. He's doing Internet consulting, so he's gonna make this happen. I did those two hit it out of the ballpark, and after that, I became to be known as the guy you hire if you want your Internet initiative to be launched.

SAM
Wow.

SABIR
Right. So that I did for a while, right? During dot com, I was not sleeping. I had clients around the clock. And then here's the pivot point. I get involved with the Vitamin Shoppe and Jeff Horowitz, right. As the founder of the company. So, you know, he had he had taken his Vitamin Shoppe dot com, went out and did like everybody does now calling their company's blockchain right He did the dot com part of it back then. He takes it, puts it up on Nasdaq as a public company separate it from the parent company. 

That company goes public just like a lot of dot.coms. It goes bust and it goes bankrupt. He buys the assets back, he gets involved with me, I get involved in the business, and I start putting the machines back together. Literally, he bought it from a fire, you know, asset fire sale from a bankruptcy court. So I start putting the stuff together and I went like, okay, who who do I talk to to start marketing and bringing some traffic to the site. Goes like, What are you talking about? I thought from my network, they said, you're the guy. I said, Yeah, it's like a captain Kirk moment, right?

SAM
Yeah.

SABIR
I said I was Scotty. I said, No, I'm an engineer. I'm not a marketer much. So he was like, No, I've seen you do this work. You're really great at it. I'm going to teach you the vitamin business. You need to pick up some marketing stuff and you will do great, right?

I said, Okay, fine. So I took that on. Mind you, my background in marketing and business was two courses: Economics 101, and Accounting 101, at Queen's College because that was core requirements, not that I had any interest in it, right? So during the week I'm working at Vitamin Shoppe. On the weekends I go to Barnes and Noble, pick up marketing books that I have never read in my life.

I start taking notes from it every single weekend and whatever I learn on the weekend self taught right? I come into Vitamin Shoppe during the week. I implement everything that I learned that weekend, literally. So that channel went from bankruptcy or, pre-bankruptcy was $12 million. And this is what it was my very first time, $52 million in four and a half years. 

SAM
Wow.

SABIR
And a forged in fire approach going at it without any real prior knowledge. And there's a lesson in it, Sam, because when you are part of a clique, right, you're part of an industry, a major, right? You literally have blinders on. I had no rules. Nobody told me the rules about marketing. 

So I figured it out. And then I said, okay, I'm going to because at that time, great for me, there was no e-commerce marketing book. Yeah, nobody had written the book for it. So what I did was I read about infomercials and direct marketing and DRTV and stuff like that, like things that that you would mail to people.

I said, okay, let me learn those foundational stuff. And apply those things towards this, this new medium and see if it works. Bring your own. And from that day on, and it's been 25 year journey my every single day I practice turn, test learn optimize check your ego at the door right your opinion literally does not matter right. And given the fact that I've done $1 billion in incremental sales, I could be on a pedestal with a huge ego. But the thing is, once you check that ego and a lot of companies, they do that, right?

I'm the CEO, I'm the CMO. So if I'm saying I'm the CMO, I have the most brilliant idea. Nobody else matters, right? And that ends up actually hurting the business when when you think like that. In my case, it's either work, which is my engineering background. You set that up to test. You either get the data and it works or it just doesn't work.

If it doesn't work, change the parameters, retest. If it didn't work again. Okay, you know what? There are a thousand other tests you could do. Move on. Don't don't attach your ego or your emotion to that test to say, oh, why didn't it work? Well, as soon as you do that, that's when you start spending money so much on your ego that your bank doesn't have enough cash flow to fund it.

In a fast moving industry like ours, you're only as good as your last ad. So you got to keep iterating, keep testing and keep going for it.

SAM
Now Sabir I did want to get a little bit into the the 8D methodology that you mentioned before. Can you walk me through how that works?

SABIR
Sure. So this 8D method, I have refined it over say it has existed in some form
for for the past 25 years. But every time - because economic changes happened. Right. We had pandemic, we had inflation, we had a recession. Each one of these things causes issues with strategies where you need to make adjustments to your strategies. It's not tactical stuff, it's very foundational and very much strategy based.

So that means that when you implement these things, these eight dimensions - and 8D stands for eight dimensions of e-commerce. Once you implement them and optimize them, they're foundational so that it's not like you're giving it back, right? You know how you work with an agency and you run some ads and after that agency is done, if they did a great job or poor job, like literally when you move on, you move on from that agency and all that work that you have done.

You give it back. You gave it back basically. Right? You have to restart the clock, but with the 8D method, it's foundational and once you implement it, it stays with you to kind of give you the power of it… in our most recent, we started the Rapid
2X group three weeks ago.

This is our this is our fourth week now with this new group that we have and we've been running it pretty regularly. As a collective, they have grown their businesses in the first three weeks. It's a 12 week program. In the first three weeks shy of 91% incremental revenue. They scored more incremental revenue than the total revenue year over year that they had scored last year for the same period. 

SAM
Wow. By the way, what was the timeframe? You said within the first three weeks. 
What are.... Like what are the major changes that you're making to have such a jump like that?

SABIR
So we go through so let me take you through it. Right. It's very... it is a methodology. So it is a method based. You have to go through them, right? So it's a 10 to 12 week program that we go through. Right. And each week we focus on on a dimension or a or a subset of a dimension, because some dimensions do take a little bit more, right?

So for example, the first one is performance optimization. The very first thing, because my thesis is - and actually has been proven many times, there is something broken with your business, right? And if you optimize if you optimize some key elements and this is why the first three weeks we spend is performance optimization and that means performance optimization of your site and landing pages, performance optimization of your email, your customers and SEO and performance optimization of your paid media ads.

So that's the first three weeks, right? If you think about it, those ten weeks is brutal. It's a lot of work, but the thing is, you know, you're no longer working in a situation that what am I doing wrong? You know, like we've that's what we are doing. We're fixing. We are fixing the business in those ten weeks, right?

So in the first three weeks, we focus on performance optimization in these three key areas. And why do we do that? The very first task that we tackle has to do with your site speed. Okay? If your site speed is not at par with consumer attention span and if you are off, and I'll tell you that what the baseline is, if you're off by one second, every one second that you add on top of that attention span, you're losing 30% of your conversion rate and your increasing bounce rate by 30%. Those are very important KPIs. Both of them are.

So imagine now you're spending $10,000 per month or $100,000 per month on Facebook ads to drive this traffic. If you could lower that bounce rate by 30% and increase your conversion rate by 30%, what happens to your ROAS? It just magically goes up without even optimizing paid media ads.

You're just all you're doing is you're looking at the site itself and a lot of agencies,
this is where they get it wrong, right? When they are running Facebook ads, they focus on creative optimization, ad copy and CTA and audience segmentation and stuff like that. But what about the house? The house is not in order. Infrastructure that's setting all of that up and holding it together.

So let me ask you this key question related to performance optimization in 2024 when we are recording this right now. Right. What is the consumer attention span in 2024? 

SAM
What like how many seconds does the consumer keep their- 

SABIR
No, how many seconds do they tolerate you?

SAM
Tolerate you? Okay, now are we talking like for waiting for a page to load or just like watching you.

SABIR
No, attention span. You have to make your point to the consumer. 

SAM
My guess would be 8 to 10 seconds.

SABIR
Ooh. That was back in 2001.

SAM
Oh God.

SABIR
So in 2024, I've been part of this journey. This is what makes it exciting right? In 2024, you have to thank three apps. App number one is TikTok, App number two is Instagram reels. App number three is Amazon app, right?

These three apps have trained and they have spent billions of dollars on consumer attention. They have lowered that attention span to 1.7 seconds.

SAM
1.7? Jesus. Oh, wow.

SABIR
And if you don't make your point in 1.7 seconds with your website, not page speed, page speed needs to be even better than that for you to make your initial impression with me. Impression. First impression, within 1.7 seconds.

SAM
Right.

SABIR
If you don't make that attention, if you don't grab my attention, in that 1.7 seconds, I'm off.

SAM
Yeah.

SABIR
This is why you are seeing increased number of bounce rates increased, right? When you introduce a new traffic, the tolerance is not there. The issue is not your... not necessarily your Meta ad or Google ad that you're running. The issue is you did not present it to them in due time that they they were tolerating you right for 1.7 above this 1.7 second mark. Every second you add 30% loss in conversion rate.

SAM
Yeah.

SABIR
So now you can see in that first week and within first few days, some of the Rapid 2Xers–that's our program–that implements the, the 8D method. It's called the Rapid 2X Accelerator Program. Within the first few days some, some of amazing rapid 2X-ers we have in there, they're like type-A personalities, highly motivated.

They as soon as I assigned a task on Monday morning, right, they implemented by Monday night or Tuesday, they start seeing results and some of them saw 30, 40% increase. Like, wow, this was I was literally sitting on this and I didn’t fix my - my site was the problem.

SAM
Right.

SABIR
Like, it goes like, like by the way, side effect my ROAS increased on Meta ads and Google ads.

SAM
Yeah.

SABIR
That has nothing to do with your- So if your agency is complimenting themselves like this, right, that they did something brilliant this week, just let them know that you're you're optimizing your site right now. And that's why they're seeing the side effect of that. Right.

And everything we do is very surgical, right? Everything has to make sense. So imagine during this ten week period when we are doing 100 optimizations to the business. Right. And it touches it's not just marketing, it's not just the site, it's logistics. It's everything that we touch. And I'll take you through all the other other dimensions also. Right. Imagine hundred optimizations in ten weeks.

SAM
Yeah.

SABIR
If you get- and Sam, you have been in this game for a while too, right? If you get out of every optimization, you get 1% improvement in that KPI, 1%, just 1% in ten weeks. That's 100% improvement. That's an incredible growth, you know. But you know that some some are going to give you a reasonable 1.8%, 10%, 15%. But there are some that give you 250% increase.

SAM
Wow. You know, wow. So, yeah, it's it sounds like you're working with the 8D method. You're starting with the structural stuff, the more low hanging fruit where you can just change this and then it gets a little more incisoring as as you go along.

SABIR
Yeah. So it just the first three weeks, it's a lot of implementation, right? Implementation, fixes - and by the way, I'm advising in that scenario. So I'm advising them, you know, the the founder is 100% in control of implementation. Some of them implement very quickly and they see incredible results. I mean, the average that I shared with you was shy of, what, 91%?

There are some overachievers in there that are well above that 91% mark. You know, in the first three weeks, you know, and they will potentially probably they're going to be there are two of them that are doing an incredible job, right. Head to head. They're butting heads, which is great with what you need. That's sort of healthy competition among among type-A personalities.

And they do a great job, you know, and they see the results. It's not like I'm telling them to do something that's going to be- cause to me, wasting money is one thing, right? Because if you do bad ads and stuff like that, you're wasting money. But worse for me is wasting time. Because time is the one thing I cannot make back. I can make back the money somehow, right? But once you waste the time, that's it, you know, so we use the time really efficiently during these ten weeks.

And also as a human being, when we try something for 21 times over for 21 days,
it becomes part of our habit too. So this becomes habit forming that these founders are becoming trained into seeing things in a very different light. Right. And if I'm spending my time or money on something, this is how I want to test it. This is the results I want to get. They start getting better and better at decision-making also going forward, even once they graduate, the Rapid 2X program.

SAM
Okay. Well thank you for yeah. For going into the the methodology of it. Is there is there more that you want to break down for the methodology or do you want to-

SABIR
Sure. So there are some other things that we go through, like, you know, for quite a lot of e-comm folks, you know, pricing is a big one. So dimension number two is pricing. But when we talk about pricing, we're not- we're talking about strategic pricing. We're not talking about just coming up with promo codes and discounting to help. You know.

That's that's something I actually prohibit my Rapid 2X-ers from doing. You know, we want to do it very efficiently and very targeted when it makes sense. Well, we talk about the seven different sub dimensions of pricing that we need to implement in our business so that not only are we increasing average order, we are also increasing net profitability of the business too by strategically thinking about pricing in a different way. Now, dimension three is marketing.

I'm sorry, Sam, you.

SAM
No, I didn't want to interrupt you because I love the methodology. I can get into this later. But one of the things that I've been talking a lot with the other guests we've had on the podcast is about a renewed focus on profitability and net profitability over just growth and revenue that we've seen, particularly in the last year or so, based likely on the increase in interest rates and the lack of cheap capital. 

I was going to. Yeah, just ask you for your thoughts on that. If you've if you've seen more focus going in on that in just the last year.

SABIR
Cost of doing business has gone up. I mean, the interest rates definitely are one factor. But if you look at the cost of advertising has gone up at the same time where the ROAS has tanked. Right. And you've got to thank iOS 14 update for that. Right. 

You know, but the thing is that the platform itself is not efficient. And even when it is efficient and you're happy, then Facebook ads delivery, you know, shuts down and and it's not delivering results. So it's costing you more to operate that business. Right. 
And also, you know, if you're in e-commerce, definitely you're you're also either thinking about or you're- have implemented Amazon as a selling channel also, right? In addition to your DTC channel.

So if you have Amazon, you know, Amazon fees are going up too, and there are more restrictions on on what can be sent and how much can be sent. And if there are storage fees that are going up or FBA fees are going up, that's increasing too on top of that. So overall, it's like a perfect storm of increased business expense, cost of doing business right.

So that's what what is the side effect of that? You have to be super careful about the right strategies you can implement for your business that yields you the right level of profitability. Otherwise you might as well just shut down and shutter that business because what is what good is top line sale if you don't have any
if you don't have any cash flow.

SAM
Growth only takes you so far. If you don't have the actual money  coming in to keep making the business go.

SABIR
And VC money has become more expensive also. So that's, that's the other thing. So if you think that, oh I have a faucet, it's called VC money or angel investor that has become more more expensive too.

SAM
100%.

SABIR
You know, because VCs are becoming smarter and smarter about, oh you know what, the cost of getting capital from the bank is not cheap anymore. So our money is even more expensive. You know, economy we've seen over the last 15 years. 

People are starting to have to get a little bit smarter about making sure that they're bringing in the net profit that that they're going to need to keep going. I mean, you're going to have two classes  of companies in that, right? You're going to have one class of companies that are going to just fold because they just don't know any better. Because when you have free money, people think that they're very smart 

They're going to continue doing it until they run the business into the ground while other ones that are becoming they'll become much more smarter very quickly, right? And they may have been practicing it a little bit, but now they realize that I need to practice even harder so that I have a better cash flow. Because cash is king. The cash in the bank is going to be king for my cash flow, right?

So if I have that, that means I can get more inventory, I can acquire more customers. And if I'm doing that efficiently and in a smarter way, like our average Rapid 2X-er, they’re- when they enter the program, they're getting less than 1 ROAS you know, less than 1 ROAS.

SAM
Yeah.

SABIR
Some of them are feeling like heroes. They might get 1.5, right? Right. And they go like, well, we have an agency that said, that's promising close to 2 and we're looking into that. So here here's some of the results of the Rapid 2X-ers when they optimize, you know the entire dimensions, all the dimensions, Right? 3-4x on Meta ads, and 6-7x on Google ads.

And I don't call myself, by the way, a paid media agency. I'm an advisory firm. Right. Because I advise on on the on the best practices that you need to implement in your business to survive, right? And on Amazon is 10 to 13x ROAS.

SAM
Wow.

SABIR
So you want that cash machine to actually produce cash for your business because the cash flow is is the blood for your business and oxygen. So that that that gives you that that growth that you need, that fuel that you need to buy more inventory, to hire more employees to, ultimately that's what you're doing, right?

You know, to to, you know, to expand your business, more categories. Those are the things you want to think about when you're operating that business. But if you're doing it inefficiently and you're doing it and not thinking about the cash flow, what does that do? Eventually you're going to run out, right?

And a lot of those capital places that you would go to before are not available to you anymore. Yeah, they've run dry or are in the process of running dry.

SAM
So getting back to what you were saying before,
I think you were on the third- 

SABIR
So 2 was pricing.

SAM
Okay. 2 was pricing, what was 3?

SABIR
So 3 is marketing and marketing is not selling. Marketing is storytelling. Yes, You have to spend time telling your story about your brand. Why? Why did you come up with this brand? Why you, right? You as a founder, why did you come up with this thing that you're trying to sell, right? And what you're selling: why did you make that?

Now I'm trying to say like I'm not talking to the drop shippers, right? You could still be a drop shipper, but if you're telling a story around it, you're not a regular drop shipper. So I want to I want to make that distinction there. 

But everybody else, like if you came up with this new thing, yeah, a new knickknack, that's going to be different than a, you know, what's in the market and stuff like that, Right? Why did you come up with it? Why you, right? Why you is the founder story, right? Why that product? Those are the features and benefits and how does it benefit the consumer when they buy this thing from you, right?

It's all about the consumer at the end of the day, right? And when you're telling that story, do you put the customer on a pedestal? Not your product, not yourself, because a lot of brands do that. They put themselves on a pedestal. They go like, worship me. I'm I'm the brand, I'm the founder, I'm the product. No, the other way around.

How do you fit into their lives, right? Into the consumers’ lives. You once you make that pivot and you make the story about about the consumer, you win in a big way. And it's about now you have the mechanism to do it. You're blessed in 2024; platforms like social media, YouTube, your website, email marketing or partner sites, paid sponsorships. I mean, the list goes on.

There are thousands of outlets where you can tell that story and very tell it very effectively. 

SAM
I mean, some of the some of the best marketing that I've seen in the last years is a shoe company in the UK that has their own reality series they've launched on YouTube where they bring in all these different creators and have it all about that
and they still talk about the shoes, they still have it there, but they've they've created this great story and this great branding around it where people who aren't even interested at first are going to be drawn into it.

SABIR
Yep, absolutely. Like it's we are we are humans after all, right? Even if we take take
let's take us back to the- to the fictional cave times, right? I don't know if it's true or not, but let's say cave times when we went out hunting. Right?And men went out hunting and they hunted. When they sat around the fire, they were talking about like what they hunted, how did they, prey, how did they stalk, and all those kind of things and how that beast thing came attacking them.

And that has been part of our DNA. Now we're doing it over Zoom, right? And we're doing it over social media. Right? And if it was, you know, the females, how you know, if they were taking care of the cave and taking care of the kids and taking care of, you know, making the food and stuff like that from those cave times. Right?

They were talking about what were the greatest things; social media existed from back then, right? You know, it was called the firepit right at the fireplace. They would sit around and talk. Everybody would talk to each other about what was going on. Fast forward, it's just we're still cave people. It's just that our fire is is an app on an iPhone that we use. And that's the mechanism we use to do that, right?

We are still at our core. We believe in stories, you know, regardless of what culture you come from, right? Because there is always an argument about some cultures are more technical versus story. You know what? At our DNA level, we all love stories, right? We all love stories and we believe in stories.

SAM
I even have the book story Storynomics right behind me with. Robert McKee 
Great screenwriting people talking about, you know, the stories behind marketing. Because if you don't do a story that people are engaged in, then why should they care?

SABIR
Yeah, I mean, otherwise, you know, you're telling them, oh, it's AA batteries, you know, it's five feet tall. Yeah, it's 23.7 inches. It's 15% faster. Okay, tell me how does that help me first before you tell me all these technical things, you know? So. So that's that's dimension three.

Number four is product positioning and brand building, right? Your product is different than what's in the marketplace, right? You have to dig deep and figure out how you want to position your product. If you say that oh it’s for everybody. I hear that from every founder, by the way. It's meant to be for everybody. It can help. Well, women. 

So what's your market addressable market? It's humans from from from 18 to till they're dead. You know, that's the entire audience. Okay. All right. So you didn't tell me you have $1,000,000,000,000 budget, you know, to address that market. Oh yeah, I don't have that much money. Right. All right. So what is your addressable market? Right?

And if you look at okay, let's let's lower our expectations, like let's look at who we want to address so that they become evangelists. And how does your product
in this dimension, we're optimizing the product positioning. So many sites even today when I go to that product landing page, right? They have learned from Amazon at least they have the product title. They have several images and that's it, right? They don't go beyond that.

They don't tell you, like, why should I buy when a consumer- here's the thing, Sam, right? When a consumer shows up to your site and you know the bounce rate, if you are lucky, the bounce rate is 65%. So that means only 35% stayed on your site. When you run full traffic from Meta ads and stuff, initially that number jumps to 80, 90%. Right? That's that's the reality of the day. Right?

So the 35 people that stayed with you, now they have a tolerance of 1.7 seconds. Right. Are you really telling them something beneficial? That 35%, those 35 people out of 100 have a thousand reasons why they don't want to buy from you. They don't trust you because they were asking for credit card, the price point is too high, but you're not offering installments. Is that red red enough for me? Or the pink, pink enough for me or blue “blue”, or is it dark gray? Right?

All all of those. I think there's a thousand reasons why I don't want to buy from you. Even though I showed up on your site and I tolerated to stay on your page for 1.7 seconds or more. Yeah, but now I'm not engaged, so I'm just going to go away. Yep. So engage me. Like, tell me why should I care? 

Like, I've seen that that product that a water fountain for your cat, right?I've seen it on thousands of sellers on Amazon. Right? What makes it different about this. Right? About this site. Now I have a cat. If that site belonged to me, I would show my cat and talk about Heather. And Heather is my cat's name, right?

I would talk about Heather. I would say how much she loves this and how her fur is growing so much nicer because she has flowing water and stuff like that. I'm telling a story of how Heather changed my life and has become my support animal and stuff like that. 

So now it goes back to dimension three, where I'm storytelling now, but it's helping this dimension of product positioning to say that, Oh well, you have a better emotional connection with your cat. You are actually, since your cat is part of your family, you can treat it so much better. And this water fountain actually helps her get hydrated all the time and have such beautiful fur and and look at her healthiness and how happy she is and stuff like that. Right? That's product positioning. Right?

And brand part of it is why should I care about you to have a relationship with you over a longer period time? Oh, I'm not just telling you to buy the water fountain. You're buying also the story that goes with it and my expertise of how I take care of Heather. Right?

So I'm telling you that- don't buy the- don't buy the water fountain by itself. You need to change the water filter once a month. Otherwise going to get green and your cat is going to get sick. So I'm offering this special bundle- which touches the pricing now- at a special price. It’s a 12 filters for 12 months so that you're taken care of for the entire year and your cat is going to be healthy and happy.

Now we move on to the fifth dimension. The fifth dimension is customer  user experience. Right? Now, in the first four dimensions you have, you have done all the right things with the speed of the site is great and everything that you do related to performance optimization of your email marketing, SEO, customers, you're looking at your paid media ads, your landing pages, everything is optimized through that process. Your marketing and storytelling, your product positioning, your pricing is right. Right? 

Now, why are we doing all these things? We're doing it because of the person that we want to put on a pedestal. It's not you as a brand owner, it's your customer. Because if your customer doesn't exist, your company doesn't exist, right? They pay for everything, right? So customer UX in this dimension, in the fifth dimension, what we are doing is we are doing everything to assist the customer user experience throughout their journey.

And their journey, finishes on your site. 

SAM
Mm hmm.

SABIR
It doesn't start on your site. It starts with wherever you had that social connection with them, right? It could be word of mouth also. Right? So. So think of all those connection points, starting points. It could be ads that you're running that that brings the people in, you know, Are you connecting, truly connecting between the ad creative that you have and where you're landing them. Right?

And I see a lot of a lot of e-commerce businesses where they missed the mark. The creative looks amazing. But when they land on the page, it misses the mark. They don't- the consumer is lost. Right? Imagine watching those.Some there are some movies and very bad directors out there.

Right? You're watching a movie, right? It cuts from one scene to the next scene. But what happened? Like, where's the story? Where did she come from? Right? And you're confused. The same happens when you do do that to consumers. When you are showing something on a Meta ad or or on your free YouTube channel that they consume some video. Right?  And then they show up to your site. They go like, is this the same brand?

SAM
Yeah.

SABIR
Right? They get confused. So that customer journey needs to be optimized. Right? So think of whatever whatever that snippet, that micro content that that you showed that you got a little bit of a commitment from that consumer when they when you land them on your site. 

SAM
Mm hmm.

SABIR
So think of the other thing as a movie trailer. Okay? You showed me a trailer. I love the trailer. Right? I love the Avengers. Whatever you showed me. I want to watch the movie. So when I land on your site, let me watch the movie. Tell me more. Right? Tell me about more benefits of the product, the storytelling, all the great things about it, how to use it, how to care for it.  Tell me everything about it. I’m ready to buy. Right?

And I find it so funny that consumers have their literal wallets out with their credit card and they want to pay you. And e-comm businesses do everything to hinder that commercial transaction. They are the anti e-commerce e-commerce sites, you know. So, you know, optimize that consumer journey and in in 2024, the number one thing you need to prioritize for the consumer journey, it you know if you have a designer that has a beautiful Mac on their desktop. Right. And they're showing you how beautiful your website looks on a desktop, 

And I'll tell you, based on stats, nobody cares. In case of e-commerce, a anywhere from 60 to 80% of your traffic and your revenue comes from mobile device. And if your customer is in theU.S., that means it’s iPhone. Right? Number one fact. So it doesn't matter if you're a brand guy, you're the CMO, you love to see the site on a desktop on your expensive Mac. The latest Mac that Apple put out and you bought it and you're proud of it. Nobody cares, right?

If you want that business to work, you need to look at it literally, not even on emulation. Buy it. Buy that 1500 dollar iPhone or the cheapest one you can get. Right? Get it. Go to the site. Do you make the connection that 1.7 seconds on that safari, on that iPhone, if it's a U.S. market, right? And if the answer is yes, it does. That means that you're going to win big time. Right?

And if it doesn't go like, no, my site is mobile optimized, Sabir. No, it's 2024. Mobile
optimized was a phrase back in 2008. So in 2024, it's mobile first. And for the U.S. market, it's iPhone first. And if you are in a different market, there are other markets that Samsung is is the king. Then it's Samsung first. That means it has to be Android and it has to be the Chrome browser on a mobile device.

You have to test it. It's worth the investment. Get the physical product, don't go like, oh, I have emulator. I can change between iPhone 10 and iPhone 16. No. Go and buy it. It's an instrument you need in order to- cause conversion is tied behind it. Right? 

SAM
That makes a lot of sense. You get to find the end product that your end user is actually on. And it makes me think of when movies are edited with top of the line soundware and then everyone wonders why they can't understand it when it actually gets to the interface because they were testing it on something much better than most people are going to have in their homes or in their theater setup. So that your-

SABIR
And how many of those people actually have it regular consumer.

SAM
Exactly! Like they’re...

SABIR
Regular consumer has an Amazon or a Vizio from from Costco. Does it really work and give you that immersive experience on that because that's that's middle America right. Do it with what most people are actually using to make sure that you're. And when you're not doing it, you know what you're doing, Sam? You- literally you're burning money on the advertising side and you're losing money on the revenue side on on your site. No good.

And there is no there is no reason behind that. And based on that, like when you think about mobile, like, how are they paying me? 

SAM
Yeah.

SABIR
Right? You should think about how are they paying me? Are they paying me with credit cards? But on mobile, you are asking me to punch things in 16 times. Digits. No, I'm not going to do that. Right,? People bail. Okay, show me the Apple Pay, right? Apple Pay. Boom. Done. I'm done. I don't even put punch in my shipping address. The Apple Pay has that information or Amazon Pay or or Samsung Pay or Google Pay. Right? Make it super easy for me.

If you are in a segment where you know people don't have access to credit card
and there are businesses like that, right? Maybe they have access to a cash app
or a PayPal. Right? Do you offer that? Do you really truly understand how consumers can pay you for this thing that you have, Right?

And if the cost is too much for them, on a single payment, do you offer installment plans, and you are mindful of that? So something like $500 may not be a big number for you, You know, a rich, rich guy, right? But the thing is, if that person wants to have make that attainable for them, do you offer a five payment plan of $100 per month? I can afford that over a five month period.

And that richness. So I can feel good about that jacket that I bought or that watch that you're trying to sell me. I cannot afford it. $500 right now, but I can afford $500 in hundred dollar installments. So being mindful of that kind of stuff, it pays off really, really well in this in this dimension. When you're optimizing this consumer UX and really knowing your customer in this sense, it is really critical for your business.

SAM
Great. Okay, that makes sense. So then we're on sixth dimension. 

SABIR
Number six is now I'm going to make a lot of engineers happy because that's kind of my former life, right? Right.

SAM
Yeah.

SABIR
Number six is tech, right tech. And this is you're not going to like my next statement if you are a tech guy, right? Tech could be an amazing tool for you or it might be the demise of your company, Right. 

I even in 2024, I still come across businesses that they still think that you still need to write custom code instead of buying Lego parts like Shopify with certain number of apps, putting it together to get a great experience very quickly, I can put together a Shopify business over a weekend, right? because I know how to effectively do it using the exact apps that will give me the biggest bang for my buck, right?

But I still see that people are still, if they use WooCommerce or Magento, I’d still say that… okay, that's fine, because there are plug-ins  that you can attach to it, right? But there are still businesses that they still believe that even the add-to-cart functionality, they need to code it in PHP, or Perl or Python, or whatever. Whatever their nephew told them that graduated with a computer science degree from their local university. Right?

And they think that that's the best thing since sliced bread. But every time they have to go back to that nephew, or cousin, or whatever, there's a lot of nephews and cousins that I deal with, you know, in businesses. Right? So when you when you go to them, they go like, oh, well, the thing is, that's going to be pretty complicated. It's going to take me about two and a half weeks to work on that.

Two and a half weeks turn six weeks. That functionality could have been up this afternoon and they could have been testing if the platform was right. Don't worry
too much about your custom coding jobs. There are solutions you can use that are going to get you on the ground and running. 

More than 95% of e-comm businesses that I see there. There is no reason for them to do custom coding. None. Yeah, there might be 5%, even that 5%. I can find you an app that does personalization. That's the only exception to that rule. Right? It's personalization.

SAM
All right.

SABIR
We do the etching on the on the in the inside of the jacket. Okay. There's an app for that. I can I can tell you a great app you can install on your Shopify that you can you can not only do the jacket, you could do the kerchiefs and you could do t-shirts and you could do everything. You can go nuts with the personalization, right?

And customization, not a problem. Right? So there are there not any legitimate
reasons behind that, right? Unless the company literally says that, oh, we're in the business of tech, not in the business of whatever we are trying to retail. Right? There are some companies that say, oh, tech is our IP, right? It just so happens that we are selling this thing right now. Right?

SAM
Okay.

SABIR
You know, if you are... okay, Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos, like if you are the next guy, I'm sorry. I apologize. Right? Go ahead and keep doing that. Right? But for most businesses, 95% plus, you know, Shopify, WooCommerce, there are platforms like BigCommerce is an amazing platform too, right?Especially if you're trying to do B2B, it's a great platform to do that on. Right?

These are pretty powerful platforms. For you to like really do custom coding there is no reason behind that. Right? And and so that's that's the first hurdle. The second hurdle with tech is that they go like, oh, Sabir said we should go with Shopify. Let's go to town with these apps that he was talking about. 

So one of the audits where we do all of the tech in this dimension is why did you install 30 apps? Well you said if you need an app, we just install it? Yeah. Do you need them or do you just install them? Right? And there are e-comm sites that have five live chats. They have three page builders. They have. So which one are you using?

And the one that by the way, when I say these things, these are not hypothetical things. These are real life examples, right? The one with the five live chats?

SAM
Yeah.

SABIR
Had no chat on the site. Where were all- were they all… It was installed. It was installed by X-Y-Z, got fired. If- nobody bothered to remove it. It's like hoarding, right? You know that TLC channel thing, so called hoarding.

And they live on all like, Oh my God, how can somebody live like that? Right? I do the same thing when I look at these Shopify sites with 30 apps installed on them. And what's worse is they go like, you know, our expenses are increasing. Yeah, you have 30 apps on there that you don't use. You're paying for all of this. 

In my opinion, a very good theme with maybe 6 to 7 apps is more than enough for most of the sites. Right? And they would do exceptional features. There is no need for more than that. The hoarding aspect comes in when you hire an agency, you hire a developer on Fiverr, you hire this other guy and then they just keep on doing their own thing and oh, I don't want to touch anybody else's code because I don't know what they were doing, right?

That's the excuse. So in this, when we get to dimension number six, we go through elimination first and then we go through optimization of like, are they even using the right theme? Because you can work on, on, on a better theme with less apps and the cost, that monthly cost of having rental fee on those apps adds up very quickly.

On average, a lot of these Shopify sites in app subscription, they're paying around 1200 dollars on a regular basis.

SAM
Wow. Okay. Yeah, that can add up.

SABIR
That's a lot of money. It can add up really fast. That's that's a pretty decent sushi at Nobu, you know? That's what I spend it on. You can take your wife or a husband out, out and have a great time at Nobu. Right? Amazing sushi, right?

SAM
It sounds like… Yeah. A lot of what tech is showing people you don't need to spend the extra time and money going after-

SABIR
It has to be the right tech. It has to be the right tech. It has to be optimized for your business, not just because you read something that said, oh, you need to install this thing. No, why for you specifically? Why did you install it? Oh somebody said- no, I don't care about somebody, I care about you. Why did you install it? Why did you think that this was a good idea? Right.

And what are you doing with it? Right? And most answers is like, hush, There is nothing. There's nothing there. Right? So that's number six, right? And we go through very diligently go through that and see that even like for like, is there another plug in or an app that you could use or or even a SaaS product that could enhance your business and you could eliminate maybe five or six of these other apps that you didn't need in the first place? Right.

So that's that's the evaluation we do in this... in this one. And, and the Rapid 2xers actually... in the AB method. Actually, they implement these changes as we're doing it. And these are all attainable things, by the way. As we were talking about each one of these things- the things, the tasks that are assigned are doable within 3 to 5 days, you know, so it's not like I'm not asking them to re-platform, right? Because I know that that takes three months. Right?

So I don't, I don't, I never ask in the Rapid 2X to somebody to re-platform, but it's something that you know these are attainable changes that they do that can be accomplished within 3 to 5 days. Everything that we have discussed, you know. Number seven is logistics.

SAM
Okay.

SABIR
Anyone that touches your business, that has to do with customer satisfaction where... of things that are not so sexy and what do I mean by that? Customer service, not sexy. You know, order fulfillment. Absolutely not sexy. Manufacturing, even more boring. Right? But your back office finance operations and merchandizing, not so sexy.

But you know what? If you don't have that right, the entire thing can collapse. Right? So let's say if you if the marketing dimension and the customer UX and everything else is working so fabulous 91%, 91% growth. Right? 

SAM
Yeah.

SABIR
But if you don't have the backend to support it, your product, your bestsellers have gone out of stock and there is no end in sight, in when you’re going to get the next batch in, right? When you see that people are complaining about your products and you didn't do a great job of product positioning or improving your product for that matter. Right?

All those kinds of things. Hits logistics. It's great that you got- oh we got ten times
the order during the Black Friday sale. Yeah, but it took you six weeks to fulfill it, so a lot of your customers didn't get it by Christmas and a lot of disappointed people by the Christmas tree. Right?

And- that are cursing you out right now as a brand. Right? And now they're gonna- they're angry. They're going to go for chargeback fees and penalties and all those kinds of things. So number seven, do you have the right logistics in place to handle this growth? Right.

Do you have at least the basics first and then enhancements that we need to do to that logistics to continue growing? Because once you get this momentum of growth, it's going to continue working. Right? 

And then once once you get that growth, are- do you have the right partners, what got you here to $1 million mark may not be the right 3PL partner for order fulfillment because it's a small warehouse. When you go from 1 million to 3 and a half million, they will be pulling their hair out, but they won't complain because they're liking the amount that they're charging you for pick, pack and ship and whatever. Right?

But at three and a half, maybe you need a different partner that has amazing discounts with FedEx and UPS. And they have two warehouses or ten warehouses across the country. They can distribute your inventory, they could do FBA for you and FBM and they could do SFP and all sorts of things like that, like with Amazon and with Walmart and Target and help you expand that business and stuff like that.

But that little warehouse that helped you got there initially you outgrew them. You really need to think about these things like when, when it comes to that, even even like investing in customer service, does it make sense for you to invest in it or can you train an outside third party to actually help you with that customer service?

SAM
Well, now Sabir, why would I need customer service when I have five chat bots right here that I've installed on my site? They can just go- 

SABIR
That don't work! No. So on the serious note of that chat bot, right? There are self-service.  You can do FAQ pages on, the product page. You could do self-help type things, you could implement AI into that. Right? But that requires, Sam, that requires us thinking about the strategy of how to provide that level of service. 

And then let's say you're free for only 3 hours a day where you can do a live help. All right? So do a live chat. So that they can actually ask you questions during that time. If you don't have it formalize and standardize it. Every single Thursday at 5 p.m., Sabir is going to show up on Facebook to do a live show. Right?

And when I do a live show about my leather goods company that I have, I'm going to I'm going to ask you can ask me any questions about how to take care of my leather. Where do I source it, how, how- What's coming up? I can tell you the next drop I'm going to do. I can have an amazing, thriving community around it by actually doing a great service around that. 

And that's part of the logistics part of it, too, that what parts of it do you want to self-service? What parts of it could be AI-driven, what parts of it could be more directional, like FAQ pages and stuff like that on the product page where their attention is anyways, right?

And if there is, you know, post-purchase, right? After I buy this thing from you, why don't you just send me the stuff so that I know that how I can take care of this thing that I just bought, right? Many, many e-comm businesses they think of Klaviyo flows up to the purchase.

They don't think about post-purchase, what that relationship needs to be for that person to come back and go like, oh my God, I love this brand. I want to go back and buy from them again.  

SAM
I was just writing that in an article that I was putting together today about Black Friday, that really it's I mean, bringing people in is great, but if you're not setting up a post-purchase funnel that's going to get them coming back for more you’re- it's wasting. You're wasting that opportunity.

SABIR
You're buying transactions. That's what you're doing in that scenario.

SAM
You’re buying transactions, not loyalty. And I like the idea of a live chat thing, like you were saying, that adds that adds more to- to the story you're telling about your products and your branding as a company. That's a good way to keep developing it.

SABIR
Yeah, and in that customer UX that we just discussed, right? 

SAM
Yeah.

SABIR
Customer lifecycle marketing is critical there, right? And understanding not just bringing people in and acquiring on that first transaction and worrying about ROAS too much, what is the lifetime ROAS that you're getting out of that consumer? That depends on what you're doing post-purchase on, on your retention marketing, right?

So that- and reactivation marketing so that literally maybe the second or third transaction, the cost of acquiring that customer is zero. Now that’s completely profitable, 100% profitable.

SAM
Yeah. Get them in and then have them coming back without you having to advertise to them every time and pay for the customer again and again and again. 

SABIR
So we're down to our journey. We're number eight.  

SAM
The final dimension.

SABIR
The final dimension. So this is what I do in every business optimization that I have my hands in, right? First, I blame all the other dimensions that they are not right. Right? We we will blame them til I'm blue in the face. I want to get everything right about them.

Number eight is your team. I blame people last, right? Unless blatantly I see that there's something wrong with the person, you know.

SAM
Stealing from the business. That's right.

SABIR
Yeah. Yeah. Stealing fraud. 

SAM
Sure, sure.

SABIR
You know, there's a lot of family involved, and that's how they're getting by with it. You know, getting away with murder, you know? But team is anyone that touches your business, anyone. So if you hired somebody temporarily for $50 on Fiverr, that's part of your team.

SAM
Yeah.

SABIR
If your mom packs, in her garage, she packs all your orders that you got for your e-comm business. Typically happens in the first million dollar businesses, right? From 0 to 1 million. Their mom is helping their girlfriend is helping their sister in law, whatever. And their grandpa who has retired. They're helping also. It's all family business, right?

Anyone that touches the business needs to understand what you're doing with the other seven dimensions and what you're doing in the business. And as a founder, it's 100% you know that that sign, it says the buck stops here. 

The buck stops with you, right? If something is wrong in the business, it's not Lisa's fault. It's not Cindy's fault. It's not it's it's not Chris's fault, Right? It's your fault. You did not communicate. You did not set the tone. You did not set the process. You did not explain to them how to take care of that customer. Or you may have made some sort of a comment that sounded like a statement. It was- it's your fault. 100%.

100% it’s your credit and it's your fault. Right? You need to you as a team, you need to make sure that you are responsible as a founder. Monday morning;: what are you doing at 9 a.m.? You can't stroll into the business at 10 a.m. as a founder. You better be there at 8 a.m. So 9 a.m. when everybody comes in, it's all hands on deck.

You're having all hands meeting with everybody for 30 minutes, letting them know exactly how this week is going to go. Don't tell them about plans about six months down the line. This week. This week, we are trying to get we have this campaign coming up. We're going to be pushing this thing out. This new product is coming in.

I'm going to be on Thursday on pushing this on on Facebook. You know, Bob is going to send emails out twice this week about this thing, right? Well, you were anticipating these many calls coming in to our call center or live chat or whatever. You. 

You need to communicate that so that everybody in all the other seven dimensions know exactly what's happening this week and celebrate like that Monday morning.By the way, guys, we did a fabulous week last week. We were up 35%. And that thing, by the way, I just want to highlight Cindy, when she took care of that thing, that was very innovative. I just want to call her out that she's amazing at what she did and blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, celebrate those milestones and at the same time. Okay, let's get back to business now. This week, this is what we are doing right? And if you run your company on a week to week basis, not quarterly plans, not monthly plans, not- because what happens? That's five days of improvement.

SAM
Yeah.

SABIR
On Monday morning you could celebrate with an amazing milestone that you have achieved, right? There's no need for you to look at monthly results or quarterly results or this is why, you know, it's funny that we have incredible results we get out of this Rapid 2x program and the 8 D method, right?

And what I preach is patience. Even though you're getting ridiculous growth, being patient and being very methodical and very surgical about what we do is the is the right advice for any business, even though, like, you know, there are people that work very hard for 5 to 10% improvement in their business, right?

SAM
Yeah.

SABIR
We- we get ridiculous growth, but we do it very methodically. And it's funny, the faces that I see in our Rapid 2x zoom meeting, group meeting, right? When we hit that fourth week or fifth week, we start seeing smiles on their faces. We go like, we're growing at a ridiculous rate, but it doesn't feel stressful. 

Yeah, but it shouldn't be. It shouldn't. Because if you have processes in place, if you have the right methods in place, things should be a well-oiled machine and they should grow. And then we are addressing growth by adding the right things, the right levers that we need: more people, more ads, more products, more inventory.

But we know exactly what we want to pull on in order to get that. So it doesn't have to be growth, doesn't have to be stressful.

SAM
Yeah. Once you have that skeleton in place, that structure, then you can start scaling off of that and it doesn't give you this chaotic feeling that you would have otherwise.

SABIR
Yup. Yup. And it's a great feeling like you want your business to be like that. Like when you walk into the business, it becomes very predictable for you, right? And then now what you're doing is no longer working in the business, you're working on the business.

You have heard that term before. People throw it around willy nilly. I mean it literally, right? Well, working on the business means that. What is that- that next product that you're working on or the enhancement to existing product or enhancement to your service that you're delivering and stuff. Then you're working on the business, not necessarily the nuances of daily fires that you're putting out in your business. 

SAM
Well, thank you so much for walking me through the eight dimensions, Sabir. One of the things that I wanted to ask you about, I imagine a lot of your insight into this. A lot of it comes from the experience you've had with different retailers, with working with all these different companies, putting it together.

You're trying to learn something new about the industry or come up with a new a new strategy for something. How do you like to how do you like to research that? Like, what sort of materials do you go for? If it's e-books or podcasts or webinars.

SABIR
So I devour audiobooks and podcasts. You know? Even when I'm working here you see that- Do you see that thing behind me, that the little boom box? 

SAM
I see that boom box. 

SABIR
Right? The panel in front of me actually allows me to select podcast or audiobook right in front of me here, right? I press that and I put it on to 2x. I listen to things a lot faster, right? From a book standpoint, I finish up almost- and they all come recommended to me right? At least two books per week I consume. Right?

Podcasts are pretty regular too, right? Whether I'm sitting here working, I listen to it in the background and I'm- when I hear something interesting, you know, it's funny. I'm going to show you something, right? 

When I- you know, when I hear something, whether it's an audiobook or whatever, and most people, what they do is they go and use something like notion or, you know, Microsoft Notes or something like that, right? They use Trello to make it a task or whatever. I don't use any of those things. Right?

So for task management, I use Google calendar and if I want to write the detail, I have a running document in a Google doc. That's it. And the people who need to see it are shared with them. That's it. So they need to include their notes in there and we- all the source of truth. That's that one document, basically.

And then the second thing is a tracking sheet where I keep track of how the business is doing ongoing. Some of the Rapid 2x-ers, it has turned into a book like 200, 300 pages. You know, where they can do that. But if I hear something in an audio book like right literally in the corner of my ear, right, I hear it. Or a podcast, here's my instrument. That's it. 

SAM
The classic.

SABIR
It's very simple. I don't have to pause anything. I just go like, oh, that was a cool idea. I write it down, right? It’s a little grid book that I bought from Amazon. It's a nice pen I have. I literally write down, oh, that was interesting. I write it down, right? I literally write it down, go like, okay, I'm going to go back to it. Right? 

And then from there, that's where I go like, okay, let me let me research this. I'm going to run it because I have access to not only my own brands that I own, right? I have access to Rapid 2x-ers that when I say to them like, hey, here's a cool idea, strategy that we- it's not tactical, by the way, and none of this stuff is tactical. It's all strategy.

We want to make this kind of a strategy implementation, who's up for it, and people that raise their hand go like, oh, I'm up for it. So as soon as I announce it in Rapid 2x, five people raise their hand, great. I'm going to try it alongside them and go like, okay, let's try it for two weeks. We're going to come back and report back what we learned from it. And that's as simple as that. That's it. 

So two books, two books, pretty religion, you know, 5 to 6 podcasts a week, but it's not getting in my way of working and and test, learn, and optimize.  Everything is data, right? Set up the experiment, test it, learn from it. It doesn't matter. You showed me a book. It doesn't matter how brilliant those use cases are in the book. 

If it doesn't work for me for this category that I'm looking at, it doesn't work for me. Because it could be a brilliant idea in the fashion industry, but doesn't work in personal care. Right? So be mindful of that, what you hear- because you could hear great ideas, maybe not for you or you could hear an idea in plumbing industry that has nothing to do with your fashion high end luxury fashion business. But it sounds interesting. You take that and you do it. It becomes an innovative, amazing idea, award winning. 

SAM
I mean, I just love that you have your in-house testing network. You can be like, I think this is a good idea.And now I'll tell people about it and we'll see if they want to try it out.

SABIR
Yeah, I mean, that's part of there are two communities I have. I have the Rapid 2x community, which is which is a businesses that are the right fit for it and they they can get into it through, you know, paying into that Mastermind, right? It’s a paid program. 

So that's that's one is the Rapid 2x. They can go to growthbysabir.com and it's on there but for the others I had a lot of people that would DM me to ask me questions left and right. So I actually launched my own private community called E-commerce Growth Mastermind. That's more attainable. 

It's like $97 a month you throw money at on on stupid stuff, right? $97 to get. And I do two live shows for that community every single week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Thursdays are live Q&A. And on Tuesdays I do brand breakdown. I have special guests. You know, we had amazing special guests that we bring on that they share exclusive presentation with the community so that they can learn something interesting about e-commerce and how to grow their business.

And we do also, you know, brand breakdowns where community members just raise their hand, go like, hey, I would like to be I would like to do a 90 minute break- brand breakdown with Sabir, live. And I do that with them. So both of the links are on growthbysabir.com You can just page down and you'll see it side by side, whichever is the right fit for you.

Just click on that and explore further. There's a lot of testimonials on there from Rapid 2x-ers who have gotten amazing results by implementing 8 D method. And I coach them. You know, when they go through the Rapid 2x. 

SAM
Sabir, thank you so much and thank you for letting people know where they can find you as well. If they if they want to learn more or work with you. I really enjoyed having this conversation with you on the podcast.

SABIR
Thank you for having me, Sam. I enjoyed being here and thank you for all the questions and stuff. I really enjoy them.

SAM
Thanks for being here, man.