S5E107
· 48:02
Hey. It's Matt from Money Lab. I got an email from Will, and I wanna read it. Because for me, it's a really interesting question, and I thought it'd be worth talking about. So Will says, just heard one of your podcast the other day where you asked for feedback.
Matt Giovanisci:I don't have much constructive feedback other than I appreciate the episodes. Your ability to keep critiquing your own website and work objectively and to continuously improve it is something that I don't think many people do. I think that's one of your unique traits. I found myself guilty of letting dust collect on stuff I've made in the past. Hearing you target areas of your business to scrutinize and brainstorming on how to improve or address issues is really motivating.
Matt Giovanisci:I haven't listened to all your episodes, but I have listened to the most but I've listened to most episodes published over the past week, and they're all really good. Just nice to hear how you brainstorm. And here's the question. If you hear a gurgling sound in the background, I am making RO water for a future brew tomorrow. The question, I'm curious.
Matt Giovanisci:After stepping back from Money Lab and Brew Cabin and dedicating more time to Swim University, have you seen a correlation in revenue? Has Swim U earned more over the past year than the previous years? That's a big, nice, important question. I will answer them succinctly, and then I will go into my beliefs into each one. So after stepping back from the other two brands and focusing entirely on Swim University, have I seen an increase in revenue?
Matt Giovanisci:I'm assuming a correlation of revenue means an increase. Otherwise, you know. The answer to that is no. It's a synced. Number 2, has Sunu earned more over the past year than the previous years?
Matt Giovanisci:No. Now let me explain why I think that is and to give more context. So and that's my sync kicking on, if you can hear it. If not, I just pointed out nothing. Okay.
Matt Giovanisci:So swing you has not earned more last year than it did this year. The biggest reason for that the biggest reason for that is the decline in traffic. We have lost, at this rate, probably 25 to 30% in traffic from Google specifically. Okay? Now when it when you look at and that's and, you know, we're seeing that, obviously, in the industry.
Matt Giovanisci:Mine is not as bad as others. I've I've at least from what I've heard, and it's also not as great as some. Not niche sites, but like, you know, obviously, there are sites like Reddit and Forbes and other sites that just got, like, a huge bump in traffic. We did not receive that bump, and so that's the case there. But at the same time, we are also seeing a decrease in just the number of searches because the last few years for our business was an anomaly like it was for a lot of businesses during the pandemic.
Matt Giovanisci:We were a home based staycation business. More people bought pools during the pandemic than any other time in history. And it was and, like, you know, it it just was insane for us. So now we're constantly comparing it to that. If I look back at 2019, 2018, you know, before the pandemic, have we made more than those years?
Matt Giovanisci:Yes. But 2020 and 2021, specifically, 2022 even, like, we are we are not losing money, we are not seeing an increase. So when we looked at our revenue, our important metrics, which was core sales between, like sorry. Course revenue we looked at, gross revenue. Between this year so far, so that would be from January 1st to the end of April 2024 compared to January 1st 2020 or sorry.
Matt Giovanisci:January 1st to April 30, 2023, we are the same. In fact, maybe a little bit more this year. So we're not seeing a huge decrease in core sales. We just saw an ink a decrease in traffic. But, yes, when we're talking about pure gross revenue, we are not seeing an increase.
Matt Giovanisci:And it's because there have been shifts in the industry. Obviously, there's been a shift in Google. There's a shift in just buyer you know, like, there's just less buyers this year, less people are focused on their pools. Seasonality is also a concern. Like, we're having a very late start to the pool season this year because we're still in recording this in May, end of May ish.
Matt Giovanisci:And usually by now, like, we're cranking. And we are cranking, don't get me wrong, but it should be way harder than this. We've just had a lot of like, this this year in United States, it's been relatively cool out, you know, temperature wise. So that means we're probably gonna have a late summer, and that again is really hard to compare year over year. Not making excuses, just just kind of explaining my side of the of the business there.
Matt Giovanisci:Now I said that I would give some reasonings of like, so me focusing on Swim University has not made the company more money yet. But I believe that this is really just my 1st year. Yes. Technically, I stepped back away from Money Lab and Brew Cabin. I think back in, like, before my wedding, which was in September of 2023.
Matt Giovanisci:But I really wasn't, like, fully invested until this year. And even this year, I've kind of gone back and forth. But within the last month, maybe even 2 months, no. I would say since, you know, February, March, April, and now we're into May, I have been much more focused on the business at hand. And what I've been doing is stripping away a lot of the things that I think we should do, and I've even tried some things that didn't do well.
Matt Giovanisci:And I'm and I'm sort of like reorganizing the business so that we can scale. Here are some of the moves that I have made since returning or at least focusing full time effort at Zoom University. The first thing I did was made a decision, the very hard decision, to not sell pool chemicals anymore or even hot tub chemicals. In 2021, I talked about this in Money Lab Pro, which I know you were a former member of, Will. I'm talking to Will, but this is for everybody.
Matt Giovanisci:I had talked about how I was gonna start, you know, I was experimenting with, you know, selling my own white labeled chemicals, and things were going really good in the beginning. And things are still going relatively well now, but there were a few points where, like, I had over like, the backside of the business, the side you didn't see or customers didn't see was a fucking mess. I was over buying product. I was I was listening. I had too many people in my ear, telling me what what to do, giving me advice.
Matt Giovanisci:I was sort of like very bullish. I was pushing really hard. I was spending way too much time, you know, just crafting emails and crafting the design and like, you know, just really, like, did it all wrong. I'm glad I did it. I learned a ton during the process, and I am not a 100% sold that I'm never gonna do it again.
Matt Giovanisci:And that was a weird way to phrase that, but I'm just saying right now, I made the very hard decision to shut down that side of the business for now. Because, one, it it's very capital intensive and our business, while it does have capital, and that was the the the hard part about it is that we were a very profitable business before the the before chemicals. And once we started doing chemicals, we became very the the profits we were still profitable, but the profits were much, much thinner because now I had money going out to stock inventory. So we were spending more money than, you know, and then that way and and that resulted in us me, specifically, I say us because it's Steph and I now, but me not taking distributions. So all of last year and in 2020 2022, 2023, I didn't take distributions for my own business, which that so that so if you know me, I follow the profit first model of accounting when it comes to, running my business.
Matt Giovanisci:And if you don't know what that is, I highly recommend checking out that book. That's the model that I follow, not to a t. I have a modified simpler version of it, which I'm which I've discussed in this podcast many times, but I'm happy to do it again. So I usually pay myself a distribution every quarter. So whatever, you know, and I and I, I usually put away 15% of my revenue into a profit savings account, and then I take 50% of that, what's whatever builds up in 3 to 4 months, I take 50% of that as a distribution every quarter.
Matt Giovanisci:I have not done that for the last 2 years because instead, I have used that money to pay for product. I finally got a piece of advice from, from someone who was like, yeah. Well, d to c businesses, they don't really start making money until they sell. I was like, oh, right. So because of just all the overhead, in in product, not to mention everything else.
Matt Giovanisci:Had I done it you know, if I were to start from scratch and do it again, I would have started with only one product. I would have made it incredibly unique. I would have worked on a, custom formulation. I would have not just white labeled something. I would have done something completely custom.
Matt Giovanisci:I would have done all the shipping myself, and I would have bought low amounts of inventory. And I would have managed it and gotten the marketing right first, and then scaled it. So we're cutting that back, and I think that's a good thing. But it doesn't mean that I'm not going to replace it. So, yes, we did well, we had good margins in that business.
Matt Giovanisci:It wasn't that wasn't the problem. The problem was we just had a lot of we just had capital out. Right? A capital was allocated, and I didn't know what I was doing. I I was managing it all wrong.
Matt Giovanisci:Okay? So we decided, okay. Well, you know, our brand's really called Swim University, and so we should focus really on education and stuff that we can control and improve. We cannot improve a white labeled product. We can only improve the marketing of it.
Matt Giovanisci:But what I really want to do in this business is improve the products as well as the marketing. And like you said, yes. I am somebody who constantly looks at my own stuff and critiques it. This is what I do with beer. I hate every beer beer that I make for the most part.
Matt Giovanisci:I go, I can do better. I can do better. You know? And, yeah, that's a healthy practice, I'm sure. You know, it leads to some creative torture, but hey.
Matt Giovanisci:You know? You know? It's hey. I'm trying to make things better. So here's a few things that I'm doing now that I have the time to do it.
Matt Giovanisci:One, again, like I said, scaling back the actual things that we do so that I can do the things I can do those few things very well. Like, for example, I have since since I've been able to step back from these other projects, that whole mentality of, like, I let things collect dust, dude, 100% that's what I did. I said that to Steph yesterday or this morning. Something of like oh, I think I said it this morning. Where I was like, if I once I develop a process or once I build something, very rarely do I go back and revisit it and improve it.
Matt Giovanisci:Case in point, this morning, my brother was answering emails because he does customer service, and he started he was like, you know, he he checks emails every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And so today, you know, because it's been today's a Monday as I'm recording this, and, you know, the weekend has passed, so a lot of emails pile up. And so Mondays, I get bombarded with emails because if he doesn't know something, he passes it to me. Well, I said to him, like, hey. You know, I don't want these emails.
Matt Giovanisci:Yes. I can answer these questions, but, like, you need to be able to answer them. And so I basically filmed him a video, like, you have to go back to the SOP that we have, our standard operating procedure, and here's how to apply these things. And I literally took the emails that he sent me, right, for me to answer. I went, here's how I would use our own internal documents to answer them.
Matt Giovanisci:And in the process of doing that, I'm like, okay. So, yes. I'm right. This is what he should do. But some of these responses, some of these, like, you know, automated template responses are dated and they need to be improved.
Matt Giovanisci:And the process like, there's now new emails coming in. They're like, oh, what do we do and when in this scenario? And it's like, I haven't revisited that SOP in 5 years. I was definitely 5 years. Definitely before the pandemic because I was living in Boulder when we created it, and that was pretty much the last time.
Matt Giovanisci:And so I and this also takes me back to when I had my first writer. I hired my first writer. I, you know, created this, like, template. And then, like, the first few, I was reading his his his work. And I was like, these are great.
Matt Giovanisci:And then I just stopped paying attention and just let him go. Now, this is no fault of anyone. But when some when a when a just an employee or somebody who works for you goes unsupervised for a long period of time, it's only natural that they just, you know, they they're not they're they don't they're never gonna care as much as you're gonna care unless you give them a reason to care. And I don't really give my brother a reason to really give a shit. If I'm being honest, I would love if everyone gave a shit as much as me, but that's not gonna be the case.
Matt Giovanisci:I'm the business owner. And I have that quality, that unique trade of, like, constantly looking at our work and critiquing it and trying to improve it. So I'm like, yes. Here is a small example of exactly what I should be fucking doing as the CEO, as the founder, as the as the head honcho in charge. Okay?
Matt Giovanisci:Because otherwise, things that are left unchecked just degrade in quality. But the more shit you add to your plate, the more products you have, to me, it feels like, well, I don't wanna go back to those things. I haven't, you know alright. So let's just take that bit by bit. Okay?
Matt Giovanisci:So we took let's look at like, I just did an I just did an episode where I talked about email. Now I already, this year, have done podcast episodes critiquing and fixing email. Like, I've done that already. Okay? But it is now something that I am actively involved in every single week.
Matt Giovanisci:And so every once in a while, more often, I'm like, I wanna make this better. I wanna make this better. I wanna make this better. But sometimes, I actually don't know what to make better. And when I look at our website as a thing to make better, I usually know because I'm just in that world.
Matt Giovanisci:But email, I'm not really in that world. So today, as a as an example, I I put together a a a survey that I'm gonna be sending out, you know, along with our regularly scheduled emails to sort of start listening to our customers. This is something that I didn't have time for and didn't really feel like I needed to do when I when I had all these other projects. But the thing that I've been implementing a lot is listening devices. I've been collecting surveys off of our website, off of our landing pages.
Matt Giovanisci:I've been collecting testimonials. I've been collecting just general feedback. I've been collecting, you know, just I'm just listening. I'm not talking to them. I'm not getting on a fucking Skype call with them.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, that's that feels like a massive waste of time because I have so many people. But and my ticket my my products are super low ticket that I I'd rather get mass data and then go, got it. I know how to make this better. Right? But that's the things I never had time to do, And I feel like my whole life is now focused on it.
Matt Giovanisci:I'll give you more examples. You know, the things that we do, or at least that I do, we are constantly trying to improve are these areas of the business. 1 is our free content. That includes our website and articles. I kinda put those together as one thing.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, website article land, all of that, one big bucket. Videos, Specifically, we'll call it YouTube videos, long form videos. That is a big bucket. Short form videos, which is shorts, but then also all the social medias, another big bucket. Right?
Matt Giovanisci:Those are like we're now at 3 huge buckets, all free content. The 4th is email. The 4th big bucket, that's all the content. Okay? Now there are 3 of us that are all working on these areas.
Matt Giovanisci:I work on 2. I work on the website slash articles, and I work on the emails. Steph works on the videos and the shorts. My brother is just the shorts. Okay?
Matt Giovanisci:And he also does customer service. So you could technically call that a 5th bucket because it's technically content and it's free, but really, it's hard to say. So those are the buckets. There's one more bucket, and that's the paid stuff. That's our products.
Matt Giovanisci:Okay? Five buckets, that's all we do. Now we could go ahead and lump, like, videos, long form videos as, like you know, we could put the courses in that bucket because, essentially, they're the same exact they're they're made of the same thing. And so, okay, what is my job as the CEO? I need to constantly improve the power of these buckets.
Matt Giovanisci:Okay? So let's look at just the website. I've talked about this on several episodes, but I have improved conversion rates on the home page. I've created about pages. I have a better about page.
Matt Giovanisci:I have I'm I am collecting, you know, information off of our pages by doing, you know, what is it, like heat maps, and I am getting exit surveys, and I am getting, I am doing AB tests, and I am just constantly always looking at our website and come and, like, just writing things down and and, like, just making it better and better and better. Every single week, I do something to the website to make it objectively better. And what by what I mean by better is a better user experience, more sign ups, more sales. Just better overall. Alright?
Matt Giovanisci:The content is also being improved, which is part of the better user experience. Okay. What are we doing about video? How do we make video better? Right?
Matt Giovanisci:That that's something that I did this week, which was just starting to do animations and starting to streamline that process. So, yes, the scripts are going to get better. The way we edit content is going to get better and faster as I look at that process and scrutinize it. And, again, this is not something I have to focus on. I can just do little incremental improvements each week, And then the videos are getting not only better, but they're they're easier to make.
Matt Giovanisci:Same with the short form videos. You know, the more animation little animations, like, multi you know, recurring animations I can create, the the better the edits, the the tighter the SOPs, the the better tools that we can invest in. Just make that process easier and easier and easier. And, objectively, the videos get better and better and better. We just build more and more trust.
Matt Giovanisci:Email. Constantly looking at our email going, how do we make this better? Now I just implemented something today where I can start listening to our customers. I start to get actual, you know, qualitative feedback that I can go, oh, okay, like, that that's a good idea. I think we should do that.
Matt Giovanisci:And I think that would help this, and let's let's let's implement. And so I'm gonna be listening, taking that data, and then putting it into use. Right? Okay. And finally, we have products.
Matt Giovanisci:And with products, that's gonna be one of the easiest areas to improve, but we haven't really started that process yet. And that process is going to be fairly fairly difficult because we're gonna be creating a lot of content. So but first, I have to know what the fuck the problems are. Where are these where what's not working for people, Or what could be better? And then start to get those ideas, start to collect those ideas, and then put them into practice one bit at a time.
Matt Giovanisci:And then I can arguably say that customer service might be the last place only because we do have a tight process. Could it be better? Yes. But any amount of time I put into it, marginally better because we're already pretty good at it. It.
Matt Giovanisci:I'll be honest. We answer things relatively fast. We, you know, we don't get a lot of you know, we we've designed everything to not need the customer service so much. So, like, you know, I'll give you an example. Like, on Monday, we had about 25 emails in our email account from over the weekend.
Matt Giovanisci:I would say 30% of those are just junk mail. Maybe even 40% of those are junk mail, and then 60% is, like, basic shit. I'm having trouble logging into my course. I'm having trouble downloading the cheat sheet. And then, you know, maybe 25% is, like, I just have a general question about calcium hardness.
Matt Giovanisci:And it's like, okay. Well, you're just randomly emailing us out of the blue about a random question. So it's like, yeah, we wanna help you, but also, like, we're trying to run a business here and can't just, like, spend all our time answering emails with free advice. Not that, you know, our their advice is already free. All we do is kinda show them where it exists.
Matt Giovanisci:So it is kind of like it's kind of a marketing tool for us. I mean, obviously. I mean, I think all customer service is really a marketing tool, but, you know, everything else has kinda been automated. So, yeah, I don't think that that has really paid off yet. Now another thing that I think another, like, side benefit of reducing all these other things is more space More space to think about these things and to improve them and to go, you know what?
Matt Giovanisci:Yeah. We're I'm adding too many things to my plate. I'm doing too many things. Here are the things here are the big needle movers in the business. Okay?
Matt Giovanisci:Yes. They're not the sexy things. They're not new and interesting. They're the same old same old. But, okay, let's improve it.
Matt Giovanisci:Here's here's an example. I it's really, really hard for me to accept this. Right? Because it's just my my brain doesn't work this way. But let's and I've talked about this on other shows.
Matt Giovanisci:Let what it let me improve our mass our main course, our flagship course. Let me go step by step through every video and improve it. Make it actually better. Okay? Listen to questions that we're getting.
Matt Giovanisci:You know, like turn the comments on on our videos and start to, like, collect little bits of information and go, okay. How can we restructure this video to be to to include this information or to answer these people's questions? So that when someone watches the course, it it's it's like, you know what? I'm glad the course exists. That's the thing is, like, right now we're in a very unique position because we're the only fucking course that exists in this space.
Matt Giovanisci:That's that's any good. Right? So we're competing against nobody but ourselves. Alright? Our customers love our shit.
Matt Giovanisci:No one's complaining about it. And so does that mean that I shouldn't do anything to make it better? No. I to me, I'm like, okay. It's much more fun and interesting to look at something that exists and go, okay.
Matt Giovanisci:How do we improve this? You know, besides just listening and taking people's advice, how do we make this a better user experience in general? Right? Little things that, like, no one will ever think about, but, like, when they go and take another course, they're gonna be like, holy shit. That $50 course that I paid for was leaps and bounds better than even something like master class was or or whatever.
Matt Giovanisci:Because it's like that's what we do. Okay. So then I'm thinking, what? That is what we do. Let's make that untouchable.
Matt Giovanisci:And the thing that's I it's hard for me to wrap my head around is, like, the the the sheer act of doing that and improving the actual product, even though it's just a course, will improve sales because it will improve things that we cannot objectively measure. Like simply people telling their friends, word-of-mouth. And I know that that's, like, not probably a big deal in my particular industry, but when I look at, we, you know, we collect information. How did you hear about us? It's not low on the list, but it's like I heard it from a friend or even better, I heard it from a pool company.
Matt Giovanisci:So a pool company take you know, sees our videos and are like, these videos are unbelievably great. Their their YouTube is training our staff. Otherwise, like and now they're just like, hey. If I have a bunch of pool companies around the country that are like, if you're having a problem still, go Google SUNY University. They're the only ones fucking doing this well.
Matt Giovanisci:So, okay, just keep doing that. Now when it comes to revenue, that will just increase because more eyeballs is going to lead to more revenue. Right? But that's not the only thing that I have to do. Again, this is all about improving the website and improving the product.
Matt Giovanisci:Right? At the website side of things, I need to be in, you know, creating better sales videos, but not just going, okay. And this is what I've done in the past. It's like, I'm just gonna create a new sales video. I'm just gonna create a new sales page.
Matt Giovanisci:And then I just put it up and that's the new sales page. No. I need to test these things and I need to take bigger swings. Right? I need to test a sales page with with, like, barely any copy on it, but a but a brand new video.
Matt Giovanisci:Right? Okay. Is that better than the original with a shitty video? Oh, I hope it is. It's like, okay.
Matt Giovanisci:Good. Now the video is better. Now let's test it against, you know, a longer sales page but with the same video or let's test 2 different videos that are completely fucking different. You know what I mean? Like, let me re edit the original video that I have to make it better.
Matt Giovanisci:Because maybe that's all I need to do is just make the original video better. I don't even have to, like, film a new one. Or I just you know, whatever. You know, I'm I'm collecting information from that sales page. What are people's hesitations?
Matt Giovanisci:They people keep the biggest hesitation. Does this work for saltwater pools? Oh my god. Yes. It's on the sales page but it's a little further down.
Matt Giovanisci:You know where it's not? In the goddamn video. Okay. Means I need to say that in the video so that people stop asking that question, and I'll get more sales. You know, all of this work that I'm doing to improve conversion rates to from our from traffic to our website is working.
Matt Giovanisci:You know? I'm and I'm also you know? And I guess I didn't I didn't really, I didn't really include this in the buckets, but it I guess it's it's included in social. But and and the website, it's like I'm improving our ads. Right now, all I've been doing is taking hits.
Matt Giovanisci:Let's I'm just gonna use Facebook as an as an example, and I know that you'll be interested in this. All I'm doing, and and this is the way I've been thinking about it, and I'm like, this feels even more smart than I originally intended it to be. But because we put out a ton of free content, we are publishing 3 shorts a week. Alright? We have a very specific style, and we are hammering that style home.
Matt Giovanisci:And I do believe that even those videos could be better. Right? But here's what here's what we're doing. We are throwing out hook after hook after hook. Right?
Matt Giovanisci:Topic after topic after topic. And you just look at Instagram, you open up the reels section, you can see the number of plays. Some videos just do better than others, whether it's topic, whether it's edit, whether it's hook. Who knows? Right?
Matt Giovanisci:I mean, you could probably figure it out, but I don't even need to know. Okay. That worked. Because we're just gonna do it no matter what, and we're gonna constantly improve no matter what. Okay.
Matt Giovanisci:So that video worked. What I do is I go into Facebook ads, and I run that video as an ad. Because here's the difference. Those videos that are going out for free, there's no call to action button attached to them. So, yes, somebody watches and goes, this was great information, but then it but then they have nothing to do.
Matt Giovanisci:And so all I do is just run the ad with a call to action button to our lead magnet, which by the way we mentioned in the video because that's what goes out organically. So I'm like, okay. I just keep you know, and whenever we have a new hit, I just add it to the video. I just add it to the ad set. You know?
Matt Giovanisci:I turn off an, one that's not, you know because right now, we we we get I've I've already I've just this year, I published 7 different of our, like, top performing videos as ads in one ad set. So I have one campaign. That campaign is get fucking leads to a full cheat sheet. Alright? I have one ad set.
Matt Giovanisci:The ad set is targeting the audience. The audience is broad as hell. Basically United States. And then within that, I've just been running ads. It's just taking our existing videos but then putting links to our cheat sheet in it, essentially.
Matt Giovanisci:And the lowest that I've been able to get per lead is 50¢. That means I'm getting 50¢ leads. I I think that was saying the same thing twice. But you're like, okay. Great.
Matt Giovanisci:Now those leads, you know, they're 50¢ is relatively inexpensive for a lead on Facebook, like an email address, I should say. Okay? And that and that's only because, like, there's one video that just happens to crush. And I keep and there's other videos that are doing a dollar a lead, which actually isn't that bad either. But here's the thing.
Matt Giovanisci:Okay. Once a video starts, like, not performing well, I keep adding more on top and turning all ones off. So I'm just kinda, like, rotating through them. And then I could take videos that have performed well, That script obviously works. I could go in and re edit that video and make it maybe maybe make the edit a little bit better.
Matt Giovanisci:But we're already doing that organically. We're taking the same scripts. We're changing words. We're changing hooks, and we're reediting them as fresh new videos. The concepts are all the same.
Matt Giovanisci:The topics, the the tips are all the same. It's just finding new ways to tell them, new ways to deliver them, some that resonate with and some that don't. You know, we keep throwing shit at the wall. We we pay for the ones that stick. Okay?
Matt Giovanisci:So then out of all of those people that are, you know, becoming leads, they're all seeing an offer for our course. But how well does it convert? Well, I can tell you that we're getting probably a point 8 ROAS, which means that for every dollar we spend, we make 80¢, which means we lose 20¢. Right? Okay.
Matt Giovanisci:That would have driven me nuts in the past. But what I understand now is that, okay, so we're losing money on this. I'm spending a $100 a day, getting 200 email addresses a day. Okay? But really, I'm spending $20 a day for 200 email addresses.
Matt Giovanisci:And, yeah, those people just didn't purchase on the first go. It only has a 7 day click attribution window. So, alright, what happens in 14 days when we run a sale? What happens in 30 days when we run another sale? Maybe they didn't buy the course, but they bought a bottle of flock.
Matt Giovanisci:Maybe they didn't buy that course, but they bought another course. Maybe they bought our book instead. Am I actually doing the work to figure that out? No. Because honestly, it doesn't matter.
Matt Giovanisci:For $20, that's cheaper than paying for a fucking article that may or may not rank. And yet, everyone is finding out about us from fucking ads. It's like, it's the same thing. It's the same thing. And I just you know?
Matt Giovanisci:So my job now is like, okay. Point o 8 or sorry. Not point o 8. Point 8 ROAS. I could get that number up.
Matt Giovanisci:There's so many ways to do that. Increase LTV. Increase AOV. Make the freaking OTO better. I haven't even started AB testing it yet.
Matt Giovanisci:I've I've been AB testing the main page to try to figure it out and then it's just gonna take so much time to do it. But when I have less things to do, now those buckets are the most important things. So now I'm doing things in those buckets that are moving needles. Whereas before, goddamn, I was doing so many things. I barely had time to focus on anything.
Matt Giovanisci:Really strongly, I believe our website, just the design, the feel, the speed, the user experience, the it just looks so much better. And I'm and I'm and I I that's to me, it's, like, kind of inconsequential, but not really because one of the things that I recently did was I improved the mobile nav. Well, all of a sudden, we're we're getting more subscribers because I implemented something that to get more subscribers. I decided to do a navigate or sorry, like an announcement bar on our shop page. All of a sudden, we're selling more books.
Matt Giovanisci:All of a sudden, we're selling more chemicals. I just I built it from scratch. Where before, I would probably throw something on and, like, not really try it and or, like you know? And now I'm like, well, all I have to do my whole day is just figuring out and testing little things and going like, let's try that. Let's do this.
Matt Giovanisci:Alright. That worked. Oh, that that looks like a good idea. Let's do that. And I just split test it.
Matt Giovanisci:Does it work or does it not work? How well does it work? Did sales go up or did it go down? Crazy egg has been super helpful. You know, working on the website has been super helpful.
Matt Giovanisci:Working on videos has been enlightening. Collecting information with Typeform. Typeform, holy shit. Like, I don't know why I I waited so long. I'm just fucking sending out survey in getting just getting feedback.
Matt Giovanisci:That's, like, the craziest, most important thing. I'm learning so much from our own audience, and I'm, you know, I'm, like, I'm paying attention to email. I'm like, you know what? We keep getting asked this question this year. Alright.
Matt Giovanisci:That's a video. Let's do that. And then we're gonna do that video, and everyone's gonna be like, how wow. How did you know that everyone's asking about this? Because we're listening.
Matt Giovanisci:Are we making more money? No. Will we make more money? Undoubted undoubtedly, yes. It's just because I'm relentlessly focused on it now.
Matt Giovanisci:The quality is going to only increase from here. The product's gonna only get better, and no one else is gonna do this shit. My competition's just not there. They're not gonna they're not gonna be able to keep up unless they listen to this podcast, which I'm sure some of them do. But I really like this phase of my existence, where instead of trying to have lots of products with many different audiences, trying to build, you know, a lot of different products, even for the same audience.
Matt Giovanisci:It's like, or just kinda guessing or just doing the things that I want to do. The pee bottle, as an example, I keep calling it the pee bottle. It was funny to me. But I did this whole urine detector, like, April fools thing as a means of, like, you know, you know, as a means of, like what do you call it? Was it super pixels?
Matt Giovanisci:And I'm glad I did it. But, ultimately, nobody wanted it. So, yes, we sold bottles and we continue to sell bottles just off that 404 page. But I will say that, like, it's not a needle mover, but it's a brand builder. And perhaps it'll pay off sometime in the future that I don't expect.
Matt Giovanisci:But it's you know, that was a month of wasted time, really, when really what I've been should've been doing is listening to our customers, and they're like, we need this. You're not you haven't answered this yet. Oh, alright. Well, then I'm going to answer it, and I'm gonna put it on our sales page so that you know that we answered it. And then I'm gonna when I do, I'm gonna test it to make sure that, hey.
Matt Giovanisci:I'm answering this now. Are is it does it actually move the needle or not? Yes? Great. That's the new sales page.
Matt Giovanisci:Now let's beat it. Again, that's the thing that I I really didn't understand with AB testing. I always saw thought of AB testing as sort of like, let's just try this. Let's just try that. And the idea with AB testing is instead of you just thinking, I know this will be better.
Matt Giovanisci:Prove it. That's all it is. Prove that it will be better, right, for a for a short period of time. And that's what I never really thought. It's like, okay.
Matt Giovanisci:Now I understand. I'm going to try and make a better sales page of what I think will be better. And instead of just making that the thing, I'm gonna put it up to the test. I'm gonna test it against my original thing and go, you know what? It didn't and I've done this already.
Matt Giovanisci:I haven't been able to beat it. Well, which so what does that say? Well, it says that my first one was really good, so I gotta try way harder to beat it. But how do I beat it? Well, I could just guess or I could ask, and that's essentially what I'm doing now is instead of me improving things just to improve them, which, again, you can improve things all day, doesn't mean that you're actually making them better.
Matt Giovanisci:So now I'm like, what should I do to improve this? And, you know, just listening and then go, okay. I'm gonna improve it. Here's how I'm gonna do it, and you're gonna appreciate it. Because I'll do it in a way that you don't expect.
Matt Giovanisci:Instead of like, okay. We don't talk about saltwater pools in any of these videos, so I'm just gonna make a saltwater pool video and throw it out there. And it's like, no. I'm gonna create a whole fucking section and blow your mind with it. You want it answered?
Matt Giovanisci:Here it is. And then I'm gonna design the sales page to really explore that and be like, I took your suggestions and I over delivered on them. Anyway, Will, I'll end I'll end it there. But that was a really thought provoking question, and I appreciate it. And I wish more people like you sent in questions.
Matt Giovanisci:So if you've listened this far, please shoot me an email, matt@moneylab.co. I'm happy to answer your questions. I'm happy to explore ideas with you. I'm happy to brainstorm your thoughts through my brain because I think it's fun, and that's it. So have a good day.
Matt Giovanisci:Thanks, Will.
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