Drive and Convert

Announcer:
You're listening to Drive & Convert, a podcast about helping online brands to build a better e-commerce growth engine with Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow.

Ryan:
Hello Jon. Good to see you. Good to hear you.

Jon:
You too.

Ryan:
As we prepare for Snowmageddon here in Portland Oregon, again, there's the threat of a snowflake on our weather app. So, everybody is panic buying kale, and my wife went to Costco and bought all their sleds, so we're ready for the half an inch of snow that'll melt by 9:00 A.M. on Saturday.

Jon:
But last year you had the big dirt pile from all the construction you were doing and your kids could sled down that. Did you still have that?

Ryan:
We did. No, we've gone from a massive dirt pile to small gravel pile and the kids are going to have to work a little harder to find the slopes and maybe run faster to make sure they can sled if it happens.

Jon:
If it happens, right?

Ryan:
I put it at about a 50/50 shot here in Portland with the forecasters since evidently Portland is difficult to forecast snow weather.

Jon:
I do agree with you, however, we have a hundred percent chance of Portland freaking out whether or not it snows, so.

Ryan:
For sure. I remember the weirdest one that was what, two years ago maybe, that every storm in the city ran out of kale before a snowstorm or reported snowstorm. I'm like, who needs kale? If you're going to get stuck at home for two days, go buy a bunch of beer.

Jon:
Right? The other side of this argument is last year you did a really great partner event at Logical Position headquarters and it did snow and it wasn't a lot of snow, but it did ice over a little bit and every highway in town just shut down. And at the good, we had a couple team members who were stuck in their cars on I-5 for quite a while. So, I guess the threat is real, let's put it that way.

Ryan:
Yeah. Well, the crazy thing about that, we had people coming from all over the country because if you're in Chicago or New York and it's February, it's much better to be in Portland usually where it'll be 50 and raining most of the time. But I had a wine event scheduled afterwards, and the only people that could make it from Oswego out to Sherwood for the wine event were the people from Chicago because they could drive. Our VP in Chicago, drove just a rental Nissan Maxima I think all over. He was fine. I was like, "what's wrong with this? This is normal." I'm like, "No."

Jon:
I hear you. I grew up in Ohio and two inches of snow was like, get your boots on and get to school. Here, it's two inches and they're like, okay, let's move on. But yeah-

Ryan:
We've already had basketball cancel Saturday morning.

Jon:
Okay, lovely. Well, there you go.

Ryan:
Thursday we're recording this.

Jon:
Commence the freak-out.

Ryan:
Yeah, the freak-out is commenced, but we're not here to talk about the wonders of Portland weather and how we freak out at the dumbest things. You are a big deal and you are releasing your third book with The Good.

Jon:
You make me blush, big deal.

Ryan:
I mean, I don't know anybody else in the e-comm ecosystem that I'm connected to that has written books as successfully as you have that we have some partners that like eBooks, but they're not published tangible physical copies that you can get on Amazon. So, it's pretty cool. So, you've got another one coming and having read your previous one, opting into optimization, how much do we need to know about optimizing? I mean, why write another one?

Jon:
This is exactly the challenge where when you niche down like we have the topics are never ending, right? I mean, this is what episode 99 of Drive & Convert. I mean, you and I still haven't run out of things to talk about, so I probably could write books every couple of years for the rest of my life and not run out of things to write about. But I did feel like Opting In was all about the way of thinking about how to do optimization and not specific tactics. And I feel like on a day-to-day, I'm fighting the industry on the perception around tactics that in optimization and specifically conversion optimization, as it has become more commoditized over the years, there's been a shift of people just blindly applying tactics. And I really want them to understand the reasoning behind why they're doing this. And what we touched on very little in Opting in to Optimization was the psychology behind this.
And I'm continually fascinated by it, and I think it's really important that folks know about the psychology. If there's this tendency to jump straight into tactics, everyone really wants to know what. What tactics to deploy, how to boost revenue, they want a checklist, but they don't understand the why. They're really often missing that why. So like you said, this isn't the first time I've written about both the what and the why of digital experience optimization. My first book, Stop Marketing Start Selling really talks about the awareness of strategies and traditional marketing aren't enough to convert and provide actionable steps to shift the mindset into a sales focused digital journey. It was really, hey, once somebody gets to your site, your marketing has won. It's now time to start selling to them, and that's how you're going to get people to convert. And sales isn't a pressure tactic, but it's helping people make the best decision for them.
And if you understood that you were ready to start doing optimization, right? So, then the second book Opting in to Optimization really dives into specific strategies, some of how to implement them, but also why they work from that technical standpoint. So, you understood a little bit of the why behind it, but we talked about how to do customer research and why that was important. Up until this point, really our team at The Good has always been asking questions like, well, okay, why should we implement a specific tactic? And we ask that of clients all the time, why did you implement this tactic? So, out of all of that, I really felt like there was room to dig deeper, and that's what this third book is really meant to do here, because to create digital experiences regardless of the technology, the changing of user behavior, you really have to understand the root of what drives successful digital journeys.
And the answer doesn't live in user data all the time. As much as I love data, it really lives in human nature and collecting all that data is almost pointless if you don't understand the why behind the actions people are taking, right? It's important to have that data. We've talked a lot about that, even recent recordings, right? But you need to understand the psychology behind why people are taking those actions. So with this book, I'm really taking it one step further to ask questions like why does the underlying thought process make something effective, right? Or why did the tactic elicit a specific response from that specific user, which are really important questions once you have the data.

Ryan:
Got it. So, I mean I think too often that not enough people in our industry think about the why. It is kind of like, I want to take a pill, I want an easy button. Just tell me what to do. I don't care why I have to do it. Let's just do it. Well, it's like you and I have this conversation all the time. Just because your competitor does something, doesn't mean it is right or is based on logic or makes sense for your brand. Mom told us "If your friends all jump off a bridge, you're going to do it?" I mean, my answer was always like, "Well, how deep is the water and would I be landing in it? Sounds fun."

Jon:
There you go. That's why you're a good entrepreneur, right? You answer questions with another question.

Ryan:
Yeah. Well, if you don't understand some of the stuff behind the scenes, it's going to be very difficult to win. You have to know, okay, if you're playing basketball that you play a lot of, why are they going to the right all the time? Well, if I just, Hey, they do well. If you don't understand the why, then if they pivot and change, you're not going to be prepared for that. So, I'm excited, but I'm guessing this is beyond just more of some why questions. So, what is the book about?

Jon:
Yeah, great question. I mean, diving a little bit deeper, there are so many hidden factors to influence decisions for your customers and why your customers are making decisions. And they have little to do with the facts of your brand or the products you sell. And yet most brands are still really just selling based on stats and figures of their products, right? They want to get that emotional journey, which is great. And then once they're at the site, they want to say, "Hey, it's a black t-shirt in size extra large." But really there's more behind that and behind the click, which is why we're calling it that, right? Dives into the psychological principles behind these shortcuts our brains take to make all these decisions. We make hundreds of thousands decisions a day, and you don't even think about it, right?
A decision of just when to take a drink, right? You don't even think about it, you just do it, right? So, really we wanted to talk about how these different elements for your company's digital experience really play into those shortcuts and either guide your customers towards a purchase or send them running to your competitor. And so, understanding these underlying principles is really important, and you can deploy different optimization tactics to create that digital experience that not only meets, but also anticipates your customer's wants. And I think that's important, so.

Ryan:
Oh yeah, a hundred percent.

Jon:
So, is worthy of a book.

Announcer:
You're listening to Drive & Convert, a podcast focused on e-commerce growth. Your host are Jon MacDonald, founder of The Good, a conversion rate optimization agency that works with e-commerce brands to help convert more of their visitors into buyers. And Ryan Garrow of Logical Position, a digital marketing agency offering pay-per-click management, search engine optimization, and website design services to brands of all sizes. If you find this podcast helpful, please help us out by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts and sharing it with a friend or colleague. Thank you.

Ryan:
As a brand reading this book, I mean, what do you expect them to do with this information? I mean, they're already in optimization or hopefully thinking about it or moving down that process. So, what are they going to be doing with this new information?

Jon:
Well, hopefully you're right. They've read Opting in to Optimization and they understand when they're ready to start optimizing and really what's behind optimization, right? What are the core ideas behind optimization? Well, now we want to take a step back and optimize the entire digital experience from the first time customers encounter your company to well past the checkout into post-purchase. So in this book, you're going to find actionable optimization strategies to deploy on your website as well as the psychological principles behind those strategies and what they do and why they do and do not work.
And I think important to understand because if you can look at a data set and focus on why something is happening, what's the psychology behind why something is happening, you can then optimize that experience to better have a more successful customer journey. So, the thing to understand about all of this too is a checklist, a list of tactics, it's going to change, right? Every month, right? Because technology's changing, devices are changing, preferences change, but no matter what else changes in the future, if you focus on the customer experience, you will win because psychological principles that influence how we make decisions has stayed the same for millennia. And that's what I want people to understand are all these psychological principles.

Ryan:
So, I mean, do you have a psychology degree? I mean, you are deep in psychology at this point.

Jon:
Well, it's funny. It's like you could say, "I've earned an MBA by running a business for 15 years," right?

Ryan:
Yeah.

Jon:
It's the same type of thing here. I truly do believe, while I don't have a psychology degree, that I've learned so much about it almost by necessity at first and then really by interest. And so, did a lot of research for this book, I mean, this has been six months plus in the making of deep diving into a lot of psychology stuff I hadn't thought about since college in a lot of cases. But I really wanted to take all of those and break them down into four phases that I believe a customer goes through. So, that's discovery, right? Understanding who you are and what they need. So, that research that you're doing leads them to information gathering, right? So at that stage, they're really trying to understand, can you solve my pain or need? Right? And if you can, then they move into that decision-making and conversion stage.
And so, this is truly where when you say conversion optimization, they're talking about just conversions, and there's so much more that could be done with optimization. And then moving into post-purchase, what happens after somebody makes a purchase? Right? There's a lot you can do there to influence people coming back to you again. So, I break all of those down into four areas, but I also cover why brands should work with heuristics or shortcuts, right? Things that we know to be true. So, how to ensure those are used for positive intent versus a hack to try to get the customer to convert and complete a purchase. And I just go into why that leaves a lasting negative impact on your brand because this information is just as easily could be used in the wrong way. You could try to take the psychological learnings and try to hack together a funnel that plays on all of these. The challenge is that consumers can tell when you're doing it for negative intent. You can tell that somebody is trying to hack you and get you to do what they want you to do.
And if you combine too many of these, it really clearly starts to show, it's like a site with 101 pop-ups and a little thing out of the bottom that says, so-and-so bought this, and they're trying to play on social proof and discounting and limited time, and they have a countdown clock on the page, and then they say, "Oh, we only have one left in stock." And then you come back a week later, "One more left in stock," and it's like all of these things, or the sale that never ends but always has an end date, right? It's like, oh, we extended the sale another day just for you. And it's like, no, you were always going to do that. You've had this email scheduled for weeks.

Ryan:
Yeah.

Jon:
So, if you start combining all of those factors, you really tip your hand. You show the consumer that you're trying to hack them into doing what you want. So, I really want to make sure I state that we go into in the book, I really do discuss how to use these appropriately, and I think that's important.

Ryan:
Even email pop-ups, when you first get to a site.

Jon:
It's funny you say that because the book is like 55,000 words, so it's going to be like 250 pages perhaps. So, it's going to be a big book. I had to leave some stuff on the cutting room floor, and I felt like that was one of the things that my point of view is out there. People know it. I did not need to reiterate that, so I left that out.

Ryan:
Got it. So, from a practical standpoint, you are husband, father, business owner. How do you find time to add in book writing throughout the week? I mean, you were even remodeling your house while you were writing this, and your remodel was as bad or worse as me knocking my entire house down and building a new one. So, what does that look like from a practical standpoint?

Jon:
That remodel took longer than writing this book, yeah. Well, here's the thing. When you do this every day and the content, it's really not hard to get the content out. And I'm actually putting together a whole course on how to write a book in this method because I have done it in a way that makes it as easy as possible. So, basically what I do is I write a big outline and I stew on that for a month, six weeks. It doesn't have to be overly comprehensive, but it's an outline of all the stuff I want to touch on, how I want to kind group the information. That may change down the line as I kind of research and learn more and write more. But then I go into starting to do interviews. So, I do an interview with my key team members who know about each of these as well, and we basically sit down and talk for a couple hours about it, and that conversation helps me get the information out.
And I find that's way easier than sitting down trying to write a whole chapter on this. Because if I have that, then I can take that recording. I can outline all the key points that I made, and in the recording I can say stuff like, "Oh, well, I think we have an example here from this client. I'll have to go dig that up and put that in here." So, then it gives me a point to go back into the outline and say, "Oh, there's an example here. Research this client. We did this for, et cetera." So in the end, I'm able to spend a lot of time talking about the stuff in the book, and then turning that into writing is much easier because I already have the information out.

Ryan:
So, we're going to get another piece of content about how to write your own books in the Jon MacDonald method.

Jon:
Yeah, eventually I will, yes. Because I've had so many people ask me this question, "How are you writing a book every 18 months, et cetera?" And the reality is it's a lot of effort. Don't get me wrong. It is a lot of effort, but if you sit down with a Google Doc blank page and try to write everything, it's going to take you way longer. Then if you sit down and you say, "Okay, I'm going to discuss these points with somebody," and then that forces you to talk about it for an hour to two hours, and then that becomes the outline for the chapter where you can then go back in and you know what you want to write about, which becomes much easier to do. And for me, maybe not for everybody, but I think it's a methodology.

Ryan:
Oh, for sure. I mean, obviously you've proved it works, at least for one person, so there's got to be other people.

Jon:
There you go.

Ryan:
That need this hack. Okay, so you've got it written. It's being printed now, I assume. Do you have a date that it's going to be available for us to dive into?

Jon:
Yeah. So, ideally this point, we're looking at end of February, early March of 2024, so it will be sold everywhere, Amazon, et cetera, your local bookstore. We have a publisher I'm working with, so it's going to be published everywhere. I'll eventually get to recording an audible version. I did my own for Opting in to Optimization, I read the entire book.

Ryan:
Oh, wow.

Jon:
I enjoyed the process and swore I would not do it again. But I have a feeling I forgot enough that I'll probably be talked into doing that again. So, should be fun. And then of course you can, if you want get a sample chapter, be notified when it's available for purchase, sign up at thegood.com/BTC, so BTC as in beyond the click, behind the-

Ryan:
Got it. Okay. And does that also sign you up for your regular content emails too?

Jon:
Yeah, we probably will have that as a checkbox option, but not a requirement, right? But you can definitely do-

Ryan:
It should be, everybody listening to this should be signing up to Jon's emails. You're missing out if you're not.

Jon:
Well, I think a lot of content's going to be coming out from this book through that drip, drip, drip, if you will, of different things over from our newsletter called The Good Question, so. Which I think you're referencing to.

Ryan:
Oh yeah. So I mean, if you're afraid of competitors getting Jon's information, you better buy the book and read it quicker because they're going to get it through the emails potentially, or drip stuff, so.

Jon:
There you go.

Ryan:
All right, so new book from Jon MacDonald Behind The Click, the psychology of the why people are doing things, so you can figure out and understand what you're doing on your site. I'm excited.

Jon:
Awesome.

Ryan:
Looking forward to it.

Jon:
Thank you. I am too.

Announcer:
Thanks for listening to Drive & Convert with Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow. To keep up to date with new episodes, you can subscribe at driveandconvert.com.