Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - The E-commerce Success Blueprint with Alex Urban

Starting point is 00:00:00 I've never felt like this before. It's like you just get me. I feel like my true self with you. Does that sound crazy? And it doesn't hurt that you're gorgeous. Okay, that's it. I'm taking you home with me. I mean, you can't find shoes this good, just anywhere. Find a shoe forever you from brands you love like Birkenstock, Nike, Adidas, and more at your DSW store or DSW.com. You're listening to The Radcast, a top 25 worldwide business podcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. I'm Ryan Offord, your host.

Starting point is 00:00:52 We say if it's radical, we cover it. We're covering it today, my friends. I've got a young guy, but he makes a lot of waves in the marketing, e-com, space. I had so many friends go, you need to talk to Alex Urban. Ryan, I'm serious. There's a guy named Alex Urban. You need to talk to him. I'm like, okay. Yes, I did. I started looking up your stuff a few months ago, digesting. I'm like, shit, this guy's pretty fucking smart. Alex Urban, welcome to the show, brother. Yeah, thank you so much, man. I appreciate you having me on. And can I wait to share everything and spill everything out for your audience, man.

Starting point is 00:01:29 I appreciate you having me here. And always a pleasure to talk with you and catch up with you. The arena is his coaching group. Pele, this is his e-commerce brand. You can find them at it. It's Alexerbin.com. We're going to dig into it. Alex, man, there's a lot to uncover, unpack with your shit. I'm like, I don't even know if we're just start with this guy.

Starting point is 00:01:49 If you've got anyone listening, if you heard of Lions, not Sheep, Alex was a big part of growing that brand that's still out there and still making waves and probably still feeling the effects of Alex's impact there. We'll get to that, Alex. I know. I just wanted to drop that because I know that's a popular brand, one of your biggest, maybe not even biggest accomplishments, but just the biggest name that a lot of people have with Sean Wayland and stuff. But damn, Alex, where did this marketing all start? Where did the Alex Urban Brain develop into the guru that you are?

Starting point is 00:02:20 Funny enough, it actually started a few years after high school. So I got into mortgages shortly after I barely graduated high school, got like a 1.4 GPA. And I was like, all right, we barely passed high school. let's go on and make some money. I'm going to try and summarize as quick as possible because it is a long story. That's okay. I was working at a bakery. I was working at a bakery.

Starting point is 00:02:38 And I remember my boss coming up to me one day and he says, Hey, Alex, I got you a raise. You're doing such a good job. And he showed me a paycheck with a raise on it. And he gave me 25 cents more an hour. And immediately my brain went to work and it said, hey, 25 cents by 40 hours a week. That's an extra $10 a week or $40 a month. I'm starting to like, I'm young.

Starting point is 00:02:54 I'm starting to add up in my head how much my new car stereo is going to cost me and how long it's going to cost me to save up. And I'm like the same for me, dog. So quit as a good immature decision. I actually went out with my friend to Vegas who spent all of our money. And then I got back home and I'm like, I need a job now. So my mom knew someone who worked in HR and a mortgage company. I didn't even know what mortgages were.

Starting point is 00:03:13 Got into an interview, talk shit with the owner. He's like, hey, you want to start Monday? I'm like, sure. I didn't even know what I was doing, but he's going to be an assistant. I'm like, awesome. Got in there. He started paying me an hourly rate plus a commission to help close loans under a loan officer. And then I started really like figuring out like, hey, if I'm in the right position in life,

Starting point is 00:03:28 the harder that I work, the more money. that I can make because I was very heavily weighted pay for me on a commission side of things. And so eventually I kind of figured out what mortgages were, how to process loans, all that good stuff. And then I figured out what the guys were making being loan officers. And this is back in, I'd say, 2013, 14, where we did a lot of VA home loans where, like, you were able to get a 2.75% fixed rate on a VA streamline. These loan officers are just cranking in like hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. And I was sitting here going, oh, shit, like this is something I want to get into. After that, I got license as a loan officer, started doing loads myself, started working

Starting point is 00:04:01 my way up the ladder there. And then unfortunately, after I made a good amount of money, I made my first six figures by 19 years old in mortgages. At that point, then the rate started climbing, getting higher and higher. And instead of doing a very easy VA streamlined loan, which is the easiest refinance you can do if you're in the mortgage industry, we started out to get into like purchases and like full cash out refinances. And I just like, I wasn't enjoying the money not coming in as quick. and it was a longer, harder process. But I remember things just started dying slowly and slowly. And I got to the office one day.

Starting point is 00:04:31 And I remember just like sitting in my cubicle and like just looking at the gray fabric wall. And I'm like, there's more to life than this man. Like my girlfriend's sitting here. She's wanting to, or my ex-girlfriend, I apologize. But she's like wanting to go to Europe and go travel the world. And I'm like sitting here. Fuck, dude. Like I just literally am staring at this like gray fabric cubicle wall.

Starting point is 00:04:50 Listen to the phones ringing. And I'm like, this isn't it. but at the time what was really interesting is like I started becoming a very lazy salesperson in a very unique way. So back then I didn't really know about all the rules and everything regarding like mass emailing compliance, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I was like, hey, everybody's sitting here cold calling and outbound calling all these thousands of numbers. And I'm like doing the math in my head. I'm like, I can only call X amount of people per hour. These, this many people are going to answer.

Starting point is 00:05:18 This many people are going to talk and not be interested. blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, what's the way that I could actually have people call me? And so what I started doing is I started mass emailing all the lists at the mortgage companies. And I was the only loan officer in the building who had people like dialing into and my phone is ringing. Other people are having to call out. So I was like, oh, I'm starting to figure out that there's a better way to work around this.

Starting point is 00:05:38 And that's kind of where my brain started working in the internet marketing spaces. I was like, this is cool. I don't even have to talk to people and I can get people to come to me to close deals. shortly after that I stumbled upon funny enough Ty Lopez he had a course talking about social media marketing and hey you can do social media marketing for local businesses and travel the world and make 10k a month and I was like hey if I can leave Utah to make 10k a month that's good to me bros say less we're good with 10k a month so I started a internet marketing agency I started working with like local gyms and supplement companies and really offered my services for free at

Starting point is 00:06:11 that time so I could practice all my all my newly acquired skills and techniques and everything started helping those companies grow. And then it got to a point where their ad budget just wasn't enough to where I could do what I truly wanted to help them build a business. When they're like, hey, here's $200 a month. I'm like, that's not really a lot to run ads and get clients in your door, homie. I love you, but that's not going to work with what I'm trying to do here. And then shortly after I stumbled upon, I just started diving deeper into Facebook groups with internet marketing and e-commerce. Then all of a sudden, I found out about this amazing thing called Shopify.

Starting point is 00:06:41 And then I figured out this thing called drop shipping. And then I was like, okay, like, this is really cool. if I have my own money that I can put behind all these things that I'm learning and plug it into a business, I can actually create a business that I run. And now I don't have to be worrying about some other guys saying, hey, only have $200 a month for ad spend. So I started my own, my very first e-commerce company. I actually started two of them at the time. One was called Jeepaholic, because I noticed that a lot of my friends in Utah, they love jeeping and there wasn't really a brand that was built around jeeps for people who were, like, passionate about jeeping. That was like some print-on-demand T-shirts.

Starting point is 00:07:13 So we sold a few here and there. It was a really good start to just get some traction rolling. And then I started a jewelry brand called My Wine Secret, which essentially sold wine pendant necklaces, and that did pretty well. After that, I started looking into different masterminds. And I found out about this company called Techademics in Arizona that actually taught and sold e-commerce marketing education. So I spent all the money that I had left in my bank account to go down there to a mastermind,

Starting point is 00:07:37 went and met up with some people down there. And then long story short, I ended up just walking in and told the guy, I want to get a job, there completely unexpected and got a job there so I could be closer to people who were around me that knew what I wanted to know, got connected with some mentors down there, eventually quit that job after I worked my way to the very top of the ladder and their top sales person very quickly. Selling Shopify stores way easier than selling mortgages. I was just like, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Started working for my first business partner named Jonathan, who at a time had a very large jewelry company doing a few hundred thousand dollars a month.

Starting point is 00:08:09 We scaled that to a million dollar months very quickly. And he was just poking me in different areas of the business. Hey, Alex, I need our internet marketing, like, tweaked and perfected. So I'd go spend a month in email marketing and then, hey, I need our backend systems and operations more optimized. I'd go and plug in all these, like, shipping integrations, inventory integrations. He's teaching me how to, like, purchase products and work with and negotiate with all these suppliers and then, like, how to run Facebook ads and how to run Google ads and emails and SMS and build out apps and all this stuff. And it was like such a great learning opportunity for me for a few years to work under somebody who had a very big, large e-commerce operation. to plug me in and teaching everything that I knew. After that, we decided, hey, he was very into tech things. So we decided that we're going to launch a cryptocurrency. We were all excited that we're going to all make so much money launching this cryptocurrency. He's actually a really good idea. I'm not going to lie to the tech behind it and everything.

Starting point is 00:08:57 But the day that we went to launch Facebook ads on this cryptocurrency and really started blowing it up, literally Facebook came out with a ban hammer on crypto and said no more crypto ads. And so we're just like, shit. Okay. So we all worked on this project for months. And I was like, hey, I'm going to get a few hundred thousand dollars or even like a million, $2 million that I'm just going to go be this young, 25-year-old dude, just traveling the world, living off crypto money.

Starting point is 00:09:18 Like, this is going to be amazing. We released the coins IPO, and it came out, and, like, my millions of tokens were worth, like, $8,000, I think of most. And I was like, okay, if that project's out. One of the business partners that I worked with there, his name was Ben, him and I started doing a bunch of marketing agency stuff and traveling the world. So we went, we moved from Arizona to Florida, to L.A., then we spent some months over in Europe, and then we went back to L.A., went to Israel,

Starting point is 00:09:42 real and lived there for a little bit. And then we came back to Scottsdale. And then after that point, we grew our own jewelry company. We kind of got to a point where, hey, we're slinging jewelry to old woman now. It's not really our thing. We're not really feeling it anymore. And so we just close that business out, which honestly, I probably should have sold it. Like looking at the multiples now, I was like, that would have been a crazy business to exit, but you live and you learn, right? So after that I moved back to Utah and that's where I'd been paying Sean for coaching for quite a bit, got in touch with him. And he's, hey, have this apparel brand. I want to grow. Do you want to help me with it? And I'm like, sure. And that apparel brand is many of you listening,

Starting point is 00:10:12 no, it's lines not cheap. So he gave me a 90-day trial to help get lines not sheep off the ground. It had done about $60,000 or so in sales from his organic social media posts for five years leading up to when I started. So we pretty much say that we started zero at that day. First 90 days starting with him, I helped him grow the business from zero to $960,000. And then in the three years that I was with them, it was actually literally like three years in the week that I was with them in total. We ended up doing about $19.6 million in sales through that company. So I'll grow that pretty large and pretty big and it got to a point where I'm like hey I want to kind of do my own thing now I wasn't really feeling happier fulfilled with that project anymore started like making

Starting point is 00:10:49 some selfish decisions for me and my happiness my mental health and I was like that's time to go build my own thing so recently just started my own e-commerce brand back in the jewelry niche again a lot of people are like Alex why you selling jewelry and I'm like I don't think you guys understand I've sold just as much jewelry as I have apparel the first time I ever sold apparel was with lines not cheap so I got to get back into the jewelry game and build something massive that aligns with my valleys with where I am in life now. So it's long story short. That's the adventure, man. Dude, a lot to unpack there. So my mind swirling on the marketing side and then the personal questions in between. But maybe I'll stick on the marketing to start, go the clinical route,

Starting point is 00:11:26 and then we'll talk some of the personal journey stuff. But it's fascinating to me. Okay. So quick story for me. I came up in the world of building big brands. Verizon, Apple, Samsung, Motorola, worked on Madison Avenue, unlimited budgets, growing brand and growing awareness. You've got to have reach and frequency, reach and frequency, because you're battling other brands that have unlimited budget. So playing that big game. Then internet marketing comes around.

Starting point is 00:11:58 This is 2005, six, seven, eight, nine into the early 2010s and all that when it was like shooting barrel on Facebook or whatever. But like that comes around. Suddenly you just open a store, turn it on, use these Internet tools, and you're selling shit. You don't even have to have a brand. But it's fascinating to me listening to you. I came up on that. I now know it's a balance of both of those.

Starting point is 00:12:24 We both do. But for someone like you that's seemingly done both, it sounds like you've just, you've hocked a lot of product that probably had no real brand behind it. And then you stepped into LNS. And Sean had spent, he may have not known what the hell he was doing with ecom. but had spent six years building a brand and living a brand and being badass. And it was like it needed a brain behind the e-com, but it had a brand built that was ready to explode a bit. And I'm not diminishing anything that you did because you brought the science and the art together.

Starting point is 00:12:59 But it's fascinating to me listening to someone like you of where you truly fall, now having done both of brand versus demand versus product. Do we need, is brand just unnecessary? or what's the Alex Urban feeling on brand versus product at all these levers? Yeah, so honestly, I think we've come to a point right now where there's a good balance between you need a very strong brand and you need a very strong product. Unfortunately, there's a lot of these people who did really take full opportunity on monetizing the whole internet marketing space and they've slung every single product you can find on

Starting point is 00:13:34 AliExpress, Alibaba. They burned a lot of people on Facebook. You know what I mean? They burned a lot of the audience that you can run ads. to because, hey, I can make some good cheap, quick money, but then they drop ship a product that takes 45, 60 days to get there. And they're like, hey, I'm never going to come back by from this brand again. I'm not going to trust them. The product quality is shit. And so even your audience, and the reason I go to Facebook is it's the most, it's kind of like on the highest priority on the ladder to run ads. So it's the easiest to get traction on,

Starting point is 00:13:59 et cetera. So that's why I referenced Facebook so much. But on Facebook, it's like a lot of the audience there, they're very aware of these little scammy drop shipping type businesses now. So it's like they still get caught off guard every now and then when a new and unique product comes out. But to truly build a brand in something that's sustainable long term and not just a cash grab, you need to have a brand. And on top of that, now you need to have a third component, which is now also personal brand that's tied to that. So people are like wanting, people are very tribal. They want to be a part of something. They want to support companies that they believe in, especially now more than ever, like people want to be involved with brands that support core values and beliefs that align with their core values and

Starting point is 00:14:37 belief systems. And so I personally believe it's like you need to have a very strong brand. You need to really plant your flag in the sand and say, hey, here's who we are. Here's what we stand for. Here's what our brand is. And if you want to rep one of our shirts or our products, just know, that's an expression of you to a degree. And then also you need quality products because if you're selling people a t-shirt that's some big boxy cardboard ass like Haynes T-shirt, it's like, you're going to put it on and wear it once. You're like, you know what? I love this brand, but I don't, I hate their shirts. They're uncomfy. They don't fit. They're scratchy. They make me look fat as hell.

Starting point is 00:15:08 They don't, they're not showing off the gains that we've been working so hard for. So you need to have a good quality product for sure. And then lastly, is people want to be like very transparent with brands. What I think and what I teach you a lot of my students and my coaching group is that like your personal brand is more important than ever. And you put such a emphasis on growing your personal brand because people connect with people, they don't connect with brands. And so when you have a very good personal brand that you've built online, no matter

Starting point is 00:15:32 if that brand has 300 followers or 300,000 followers, when you're able to connect with people authentically through social media, they'll buy whatever that you put your name behind because they truly believe in you and your mission and they know who you are as a person of what you stand for. So for me, it's, I started jewelry brand and it's like I'm slinging jewelry to my audience. You know what I mean? We're going to have a candles soon. I'm going to be selling candles to my audience. I'm sure I pushed a lot of product out for lines not sheep to my audience. I push coaching out to my audience, like all these little businesses that I'm building, whether it's like a side project or kind of a main project that I'm working on, because of the

Starting point is 00:16:05 connection that I have with my audience, they believe in me so much that they're willing to buy whatever it is that I put out to the marketplace because they see me, they believe in me, they trust me because I've shared my story, my truth for so long that it's like, they just want to support you. And obviously, there's a limit there is to how much product you can sell to your personal audience, depending on the size, but there's nothing more important than somebody that is your customer being able to buy a product from you. And it's, I think right now that transparency is really cool where they're like, hey, I can just message the owner that my, my bracelet got mixed up or I got the wrong size. And it's, I know I'm always going to take

Starting point is 00:16:35 care of my customers already in my DMs and it's I feel like that mixture of those three things a very strong brand a very good product and then a very strong lead for a personal brand it's like that's what will make any brand take off but if you're missing any one of those components you're just going to fall short and you're not going to be able to scale to a point where you truly can so I think that's if you're starting from the ground up that's what you need to have and if you don't have those components like it's going to be a very rough and rocky start for sure yeah it's funny I didn't think about it but way you described it but that's six years ago. I spent all this time in Madison Avenue,

Starting point is 00:17:07 did all these ads and brands you've heard of. But I came out of it and no one knew who the hell I was. Like I'd done all this shit. And I'd get on Instagram and the Instagram ninja or the marketing ninja would pop on my feet. I'm like, who's a ninja?

Starting point is 00:17:24 I'm a fucking ninja. But no one who knew I was. Because I had done nothing. And then so when I started Radical, the Radcash Radical and my personal branding all started six years ago. And they're all on the same plane of time and growth. It's crazy. It knows other things seeing him. The Rackassin away is a product.

Starting point is 00:17:41 The agency is kind of my services and then the personal brand. But it all works together, bro. It's all those things. And we coach leaders all the time that they have to get behind the, from out from behind the desk now. That it's only, it will only re-benefits if they do it. But it's so hard for people to get over it. And I've been looking for three years for a different word than personal branding. Because people hate that word.

Starting point is 00:18:03 people, they either cringe or they hate it. I'm like, what's the, I've yet to come up with one. Yeah, exactly. And a lot of people, it's funny, because a lot of people are like scared to post, man, they're scared to be online. I remember very distinctly, like, years and years ago, when Facebook is really pushed out, Instagram, like, you had those people that were the main influencers at that time. And Gary V was obviously one of them. Everybody here knows exactly who Gary V was. But I distinctly remember a video that he posted. And he goes, your personal brand and your online brand will be more important than any resume you could possibly put together. And he nailed that one so perfectly because at this point in time,

Starting point is 00:18:39 dude, I don't care who you are. I don't care what you've built. Like, I'm going to connect with you online and that's who I'm going to do business with, period. Like a lot of my employees, like I met them because they're providing value. I buy with them. I dig with them. You know what I mean? I jive with them. And it's like they might not be the best person in the world like skill-wise, but you're someone I want to work with every day. You know what I mean? And what I'm I'm building a company. It's like, I need people that like drive together, that vibe together. And it's like, you can train absolute killers. I can teach you how to be a better graphic designer. I can teach you how to be a better copywriter. I can teach you how to be a better media buyer.

Starting point is 00:19:10 But it's, I want these like killers around me that like align in vibe with the same kind of core values and belief system that I have going on. Because like when you like combine all those energies together, that's when something truly magical happens. But if you were to come to me with a Harvard degree and say, hey, I've done marketing. And I'm like, okay, have you ever ran an ad? And they're like, no. But I know that the Facebook bulb, I'm like, bro, you don't know shit about a Facebook algorithm until you've ran an ad. Trust me, I just had to plug in a new tracking software into my ads. And I had to, apparently they re-optim when I plugged into UTM code. And all my ads are crashing.

Starting point is 00:19:41 I was like, you couldn't tell me that adding a Utm code after an ad was already launched and AdWitt's learning phase would fucking crash completely because he'd never run an ad. You know what I mean? But here's homeboy who just got out of prison and he's running some ads for me. And he knows everything that's going on. So it doesn't matter to me anymore. Man, it's like you got to post. You got to put yourself out there. I know, exactly. How would you describe the Alex Urban brand? Like, what are the key attributes of your own brand? What are those core principles? To me, that's a hard question because to be honest, to help grow my personal brand and to really dial in my messaging and figure out who I am, over the last like almost two years, I did something called the POV challenge, where I essentially posted, I believe it was 600 days in a row every single day. I posted a POV was a point of view of my day. So today we're a POV challenge.

Starting point is 00:20:28 I'd pull out my phone. I'd take a picture of us in a podcast and I'd write a post about it. Or any day that I had a lesson come up that I thought would be good to share with my audience. I'd take a random picture of my car, the office, a selfie of me, whatever. And I'd post and I'd share the lesson with people. And what I figured out over that 600 days of posting consistently was that I found my messaging in who I was. And so for me, it's I just, I feel like my core values and that is I like sharing a lot of things about mental health. I think that's a topic not a lot of people talk about.

Starting point is 00:20:55 I'll talk on there about anxiety, depression, suicide, suicide. aside any of these things like very openly because I know I'm not the only person like thinking about these things or going through these ways of emotion and I don't want people to ever look at my social media feed and be like, hey, his life's perfect. Mine sucks. I'm going to go down this rabbit hole and feel like I'm alone my entire life. No, we all go through the same shit. That's very important to express that. So mental health is one, personal growth is another. And I like thrown in marketing stuff in there. Now that I'm running my own brand and I can like fully transparently share what I want to share about it, I feel like I'm sharing a lot about the

Starting point is 00:21:25 growth of the brand and kind of tips and tricks that are helping to build the brand growth. So yeah, I guess it's just that it's personal development, mental health, and marketing. And then, of course, you got to throw some entertainment there. I love cars. I post a lot about my cars. I used to be on a shoe kick. I like literally, I think about like 80 pairs of Jordans. Almost every day, I'm like, hey, new shoe arrive.

Starting point is 00:21:43 People vibe with that. But your life online story, and you're the main character. And so you need to entertain people through a storyline. And after you do enough regular posting, you're going to figure what that is for you. What's, I love adding value to the audience. I've heard some key things. You nailed them. You talked about some of them.

Starting point is 00:21:59 But let's give some of the, someone starting e-com, they're in e-com, maybe they're an executive. Maybe they're just starting, I don't know. What's in the Alex urban playbook for, obviously we talked about the three,

Starting point is 00:22:13 the hierarchy, great product, great personal brand of a leader, really helps. And of course, the brand itself, all those things help. I heard email in there.

Starting point is 00:22:23 That sounds like, I've had a guess. that's like in the top of the list. But what's in the Alex Urban must have secret playbook for brand growth and just sales? Yeah. So by far at the top of the ladder down, number one is going to be all of your digital assets. You need to have photography that's spot on. You need to have video that's spot on.

Starting point is 00:22:43 You need to have like good creative direction for your brand because it's like when people are coming to your brand that don't know about you, right? Do they trust you enough to transact with you? And so if your brand from the coming out of the gates looks like it was a website that was stitched together by some 14 year old who's trying to scam you out on some print on demand shirt or some drop shipping product, people aren't going to trust you anymore to buy that. There is this like weird, gross feeling about some people's websites where you go on there. And this is the website from 2009 when Facebook just launched and you're trying to just make a quick buck out of me. So like people of their trust is like in an all time low.

Starting point is 00:23:21 And when you're building a brand from the ground up, like the thing that I can't stress you enough is your brand when I go to your website, when I go to your socials, you need to have a brand that looks like it's a million dollar brand from day one, even if you've not sold a product. If you do not have that, you're not going to go anywhere, period. So I cannot recommend enough. Get a good photographer, get a good videographer. I started getting into photography when my ex started wanting to take pictures of her and now I'm really good at photography.

Starting point is 00:23:45 And it's like you can go buy yourself a nice camera and take some good pictures and put a lightroom preset on it and it makes your website look so much better. So that video is really good. you need a solid graphic designer, not just when you find off fiber, a good graphic designer who truly understands branding, like fonts, colorways, who's able to build out a brand Bible that really gives your brand that feeling that you're trying to portray without being able to talk to somebody, that's incredibly important. So that's going to be like number one, because if you don't have that, kind of the rest, it really doesn't matter. Secondly, you need to understand is that when

Starting point is 00:24:15 you're starting, you need to have a lot of different products to test and you need to have a lot of different offers to the test because you don't know what's going to create your stride for you and your brand. So it's like you need a good product. You need a good unique offer, especially as you're starting to run paid ads, is that you need something that's going to stand out to the marketplace. When I start brands, a lot of the time I do a free plus shipping offer. Those have worked extremely well for me, especially being able to build an email list very quickly, an SMS list very quickly, and to get some customer data in the door. It also helps train all your pixels. And that's a good way to start. Also, like other value-based promos have been very good for me, where it's, hey, if you

Starting point is 00:24:53 spend $50, you get a free t-shirt, if you spend $100, you get a free hat, you spend $150, you get a free sticker pack, giving people more for their money and incentivizing them to spend more instead of spending less by saying, hey, we're having a 50% off sale. That really works. But that's really it, man. It's if your brand looks like a million-dollar brand and you have an irresistible offer and you push ads out, it's going to work. Like the brand that I'm creating now, paylay, I created this offer, this free plus shipping offer in this funnel that's like absolutely crushing it. But it's like I launched a Facebook ad and I knew the offer is going to work well when I launched an ad with wide open targeting, meaning I target every single person in the U.S. No age restriction, no interest, no, no crazy things.

Starting point is 00:25:32 I literally set up the ad set as it is default by Facebook. And literally within the first $2, I already started getting purchases on my funnel. And so it's like that's a kind of offer that you need to really get traction with your brand. and if you can't get traction running a wide open ad to Facebook with your offer, you don't have the right offer. So go back to the whiteboard, try that, try it from scratch. And you don't know, is it going to be this product, that product, the other product, don't emotionally get attached to your products.

Starting point is 00:25:56 You're either in the motion game or you're in the money game and need to figure out which one that is. And sometimes it's going to make your brand evolve outside of a box that you originally wanted to constrain it to and form your brand into a whole new entire business that you didn't think it would from the ground up. But you've got to figure out again if you're in the motion game or money game and adjust and pivot from there. So that's kind of my starting brand 101, the few things that you need to help.

Starting point is 00:26:16 I like it. A lot of action items there. So be taking notes if you didn't hit rewind. That's what it's for. You can always circle back. And I like to play the hard game, man. I'm co-founder of a CBD company. You can't run fucking ads.

Starting point is 00:26:30 I try to make it real hard on myself. Yeah. We're going to build it the old-fashioned way. True branding, influencers, all that stuff. You're probably smart enough to stay out of that business. I'd tell you. Like it's, I love it because it's rewarding and I believe in it. And so I have passion.

Starting point is 00:26:46 But shit, when you just can't run, you can't just, okay, we got a great piece of content. You can't run a fucking ad. Yeah. Yeah. And with that, there's another kind of tip I can give to people to is user generated content is a key. No matter if you're in a business where you can run ads or you can't run ads, go online, go on your social media.

Starting point is 00:27:04 And I kid you not, go post. I posted the other day. Hey, I need 20 different girls who want to get a free product in exchange for some video content. I got a ton of DMs and got some products out to these girls. And now it's like, I'm going to have all these girls who I personally chose, which are good like representation of the avatar. I'm trying to target for our brand. They know how our products.

Starting point is 00:27:22 Hey, by the way, I just got this bracelet box from Pele. Here's what it contains, blah, blah, blah. Very good to organically push. Very good to run ads too. And as people like see other people using a product, it's going to amplify your sales, by the way. Instead of sometimes looking at like, you have to run an ad on Facebook, go your product out to a marketplace because you need testimonials.

Starting point is 00:27:38 You need reviews. They need real people using your product. So that's another tip I can give is exchange some products for some video content. It's probably one of the quicksways to get some good digital assets for your brand. What was the biggest thing you learned at L&S? Lions Not Sheep. What was like you spent three years there in a week? And it's an incredible brand.

Starting point is 00:27:59 Sean's such a fire brand himself. And maybe one thing you learned from Sean and one thing just learning being there overall. Like good, bad or indifferent. You can take that any way you want. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's a lot of different, I guess, areas and where I could answer that question for sure. From Sean, because I hired him as a coach originally before I even worked for him, it's like, I really got to spend a lot of time with him that not a lot of people would ever get the chance to,

Starting point is 00:28:24 where I got to learn a lot of what he teaches, what he studies, what he shares with his people, but also like a lot of what I've one time with him where he helped me with so much my own personal growth, that it really helped reflect in the growth of the business. So from him, I can say, like, the biggest lesson that I learned from him is that, if you're not truly evolving as yourself as a person personally outside your business is going to be very limited to where you can scale that to and it doesn't matter what area of life that is and for him it's power passion purpose production for some it's health wealth love happiness everybody kind of has their little four core values of what life is right and so it's like when you have relationship issues

Starting point is 00:28:57 your business is going to you're like it's going to directly reflecting your business if you're having if your health that's bad it's going to directly correlate into like bad business growth so for me it's hey, if my mental health isn't taken care of, if my physical health isn't taken care of, if my relationships aren't taken care of, I'm not able to help this brand grow and thrive. And that's something that he really helped instill in me. So I really try now to make an emphasis on like my mental health,

Starting point is 00:29:20 my physical health, my relationships with everybody, family, friends, girls I'm dating, talking to, etc. So that was probably one of the biggest things that I learned from Sean as far as business. Now, if we're talking like more backend, strategic side of building a brand and building a business is that there's so many pieces of like, crumbs left over in a business that most people don't even think about that you need to be picking up and growing, right? So what I mean by that is not a lot of people understand, but it's like by simply

Starting point is 00:29:46 a making sure that you're running email campaigns frequently enough. That's huge. Making sure you're split testing, making sure you're running your SMS campaigns, making sure that you have retargeting set up on Pinterest, on Twitter, on TikTok, on being, having your Facebook and Instagram ads like really dialed in. So many people are just, they put all their eggs in one basket and they say, hey, I'm going to run my business solely off of Facebook. It doesn't work that way. It's you need to have an omnipresent brand. And at the end of the day, it's like when we were looking at our ad spend and our return on ad spend, it's like we were no longer looking on a platform-specific ROAS. So it's like we were looking at, hey, we needed a 2x on Facebook and we need a 4x on Google and we need a

Starting point is 00:30:22 1-X on Pinterest. What we ended up looking at that large of a scale is we looked at like how much total was our ad spend from every platform? What were certain key metrics that we dissect it into later on to optimize things. And then what was our total revenue that we generated? And sometimes what you need to figure out is what is that overall ROAS I need to get from every single platform in order to scale this business. And lastly, it's like you need to truly know your numbers. If you don't know your numbers, you're completely fucked. If you don't know what your true cost of goods is, if you don't know what your true like monthly nut is in your daily operation costs, like you have no idea where you need to be. So know your numbers and pick up the crumbs

Starting point is 00:30:57 everywhere. I know it's like a pain because there's a lot of things to do online. We're not even talking about sending out physical mailers. We're not talking about ambassador groups. We're not talking about running your own app. We're not talking about like a subscription box. Like those are all things that need to be plugged in to truly make a business profitable and thrive. And a lot of people overlook it.

Starting point is 00:31:14 They're just like Facebook or, you know what I mean, TikTok, whatever that is. So it's like you need the crumbs. You know the numbers. If you don't know, that's hard place to be. So create yourself a spreadsheet, figure out like, what are my, what's my monthly expenses? Break that down on a daily period and say, hey, I know to grow my business. I need to make, for example, $500.

Starting point is 00:31:31 net profit every day. That's my break even point to cover my employee, my payroll, my rent, my et cetera. And then you really have to figure out, okay, to get $500 profit a day, that means I have to do two grand in sales a day at a 25% net profit. I can't spend more than X on ads, which equates out to an overall, all my ads across the board need to be running at a two and a half for us, for example. And so if you truly know those numbers, you can dial them in. It's very easy to scale and make decisions that way. So I like looking at things in numbers. Numbers don't lie ever. It's like numbers will tell you everything, transparently through your business.

Starting point is 00:32:02 So if your bank counts going up, tells you something, bank counts going down, selling you something. Numbers never lie. You just got to dive deep enough into them. Yeah, there's a lot that I learned, but trying to keep it as high level for you as possible. No, it's good, man. I'm soaking it in.

Starting point is 00:32:13 I know the audiences and, but it does lead me to this. Attribution models are fucking tough, really hard. And you know this, but I want to know someone like yourself who I consider like a pillar, new school digital marketer, leader. And so the attribution models, you know this, I know this, but I want to know like you said, you look at their ROS, but like I don't buy something the first time I see a Facebook ad. And yes, there's retargeting.

Starting point is 00:32:44 And yes, if everything happened in a vacuum, which it doesn't, where I see a video about your jewelry. I go, that's interesting. So you get me the top of the funnel. I'm aware. I might have a little intent, but I'm aware. Classic funnel. Awareness, consideration, intent, purchase.

Starting point is 00:33:03 I'm considering, I'm aware, but I'm not buying yet. I go to the website. Then you retarget me. I know you will. You follow them around the internet. But Susie Smith goes, Alex Urban. Yeah. His jewelry is so great.

Starting point is 00:33:20 Oh, God, I'm buying it. Who gets credit? And so how do you, like, that's the never-ending game, I think, for marketers, too, and all these attribution models and everything else. And I know we can get lost in the sauce and all that. But we know that one impression doesn't sell something 95% of the time. I mean, it does sometimes. You hit right person right time and Facebook in 2013.

Starting point is 00:33:45 Yeah, you did because it was so good because you had an audience that wasn't used to getting ads that way combined with knowing everything about them before the whole data, the data crunch. But talk to me about your feelings about attribution and kind of that scenario just described and how you. know for certain what's working and what's not. Yep. Honestly, man, like attribution is the most frustrating thing from any marketer. So if you're brand new to marketing, let's just take step back. Attribution is like, who claims the sale that we got? Like, for example, if we do run a Facebook ad, you click on it, come to our website, put your email in a pop up.

Starting point is 00:34:21 And then three days later, you get an email saying, hey, here's a coupon to come back and buy. You buy Facebook. They'll say, hey, that's my sale. And then email will say, no, that's my sale. And what happens is if you look at like the revenue, what's so funny, if you look at your Shopify revenue, for example, say it's 100,000 and you look at all the revenue reported by all the different ad platforms that you're running, it's going to show you made 150,000. There's so much, that's called like

Starting point is 00:34:42 cross attribution, but everybody else is reporting it. So because of all the iOS privacy updates, because of the email privacy updates, like it's very hard to truly look and figure out like where your sales are coming from, right? So again, that's where I like to plug in any kind of tools that I can to help me. There are ways to assist. So like right now I use triple whale as the tracking software. There's triple will. There's Hiro. Those are two tracking softers that can help. But again, they're not perfect. So really at the end of the day, like for me, it's like I have to look at things on a week by week decision. I can no longer make decisions day to day like a UC on ad spend. And it's very hard because like I'm not able to tell perfectly where ads are coming from.

Starting point is 00:35:20 But when you're involved deeply enough in your business and your media buying, you can actually kind to start telling where they're coming from. So it's, for example, if I launch an email campaign and I see a spike in sales all of a sudden, it's okay, that email revenue is probably directly correlated to a lot of the sales there. But at the same time, when I deploy an email or an SMS, my Facebook row ass and purchases go through the roof. So I have to like mentally take a note, hey, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, when I send out my blast, I'm going to have a higher return on ad spend on both these platforms because they're going to attribute them. So that's where, again, I like to look at things that overall weekly spend and say, hey, I spend $1,000 on Facebook.

Starting point is 00:35:54 I spend $1,000 on email. I spend $1,000 on SMS, just keeping it around numbers, right? And my company made $9,000. So my overall robust for the week was a 3x return. And it's very hard because it's like, you need to start looking at least how I look at things at a higher level is what is my overall return on spend on all platforms, return on all platforms, like what does that number look like? And then I like to dive into the submetrics to figure out like where I think the attribution

Starting point is 00:36:21 is coming. Like I look at all the CPMs on Facebook. I look at CTRs. I look at CPCs. Like those are the three metrics that I really look at and like dial in and focus. And I can say, hey, if this ad, for example, is getting a 2% click through rate. This one's getting a 6% click through rate. The 6% does have more weighted conversions on Facebook. That's probably the ad that's generating the majority of money coming in. So it's like you have to have a little bit of intuition when you're running these ads and be involved like deeper on it. So I know like when I turn off an ad and I'm like, hey, for somebody's all sales stop coming in, and then I'll send a week later, I look and it's Facebook, oh, by the way, that ad set got 10 conversions on it.

Starting point is 00:36:58 So, again, the more deeply involved you can be in your business and media buying, the better decisions you're going to make. But looking at it on a week-to-week basis instead of a day-to-day basis, that's really the only way to control your sanity with the attribution going on right now. Yeah, it's complex. I know, like, we're getting into the nitty-gritty. I love it. I know people are taking notes, but it's, I'll blow your mind.

Starting point is 00:37:16 The guy that I follow is an old-school guy like me. I guess I'm old-school. I feel young. but old school brain guy. And he took a step further. They were doing some big analysis with a ton of data, like large brands. And they were like, the best ads you can run on Facebook right now, if you have a good product and a semi-established brand is awareness.

Starting point is 00:37:37 Because optimizing for clicks, something like that it does it, it's getting the wrong. People that are clicking, it doesn't mean their purchasers. Like it's something crazy. Like it was like flew in the face of what you think. But then I read between the lines of the data, and I'm like, it's made sense because it's like they got a broader, you brought in a broader target base because it was awareness. So anyway. Exactly. Yeah, there's so many different strategies that you can run. There's so many different things that like go against the norm of what you're doing.

Starting point is 00:38:05 But if you want to increase your chances of making good strategic, surgical decisions on your ads, I recommend using a platform like triple oil or hyros that do install like additional pixels and scripts on your store, which do help you make better decisions on your ads. But also, too, if you have products, you have an established brand like Facebook right now, I know their attribution is almost 100% if you're running ads to a Facebook shop, because they go from Facebook to a Facebook shop to a Facebook checkout. And so it's all controlled by Facebook. So that can help, but you can't build out full landing pages and funnels on Facebook shops. It's very hard to run that. Hopefully one of these days, it's like, I'm guessing I predict that Apple is going to come out

Starting point is 00:38:44 with some advertising platform because they like, they understand their power of the data that they happen if Apple releases an ad platform, that's going to change the entire game because they control the data. So look out for that. That's coming, brother. I have the inside scoop on that. That's coming. Yeah. Exactly. It's wait for it. Yeah. And Hiros is what we use. And I 100% agree. You got to have that extra layer because you can't get all the day that you need. Alex, where's it all headed, brother? Where's Pele going? Where's Alex going? You're in Maui today. Who knows where tomorrow? Where are we headed, brother? It's a good question, man. Honestly, like, I'm really excited building out this jewelry brand,

Starting point is 00:39:23 but for me, it's, I want to build it to a certain point and I want to have my first exit of a company. So I want that to be an easy mid eight figure exit. And I already know the, I already understand the numbers, multipliers, everything that I need to do. How long to get there? How long to get there? You build subscription boxes, man. If you can build a good subscription model business with good retention, good products and high margins, it's actually surprisingly easy to have a good eight figure exit. on a subscription-based company. So that's where it's like all of our funnels at the end of the day. They all lead to subscription boxes for this company

Starting point is 00:39:54 because once I can grow this to a point where the subscription boxes are 10,000, it's like investors will come and pay heavy money for that, especially when they know there's a six-and-month retention on there. So that's where that's headed. And I'm actually really excited to because like we want to talk about funnels getting to be gritty. It's part of what I'm doing right now is I'm actually launching. What's really cool, I have a free plus shipping funnel that literally is getting

Starting point is 00:40:15 someone a free product that pay for shipping. and then it upsells them through funnel into our subscription box. And right now, it's really cool is we have a 40% take rate on the upsell into the subscription box. So our subscribers are like growing very quickly. So I already have the numbers figured out in the next 30, 60 days. Once we start to see more verifiable numbers, I'm just going to go pour a healthy 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 grand into ads and just grow that.

Starting point is 00:40:38 And this may be a three-year exit. It may be a two-year exit, but we're definitely on to something. So I'm excited about that. And me personally, man, to be honest, I don't know what it is that I want. I don't know where it is I want to go. I don't know where I want to live. I don't really know much, to be honest with you, but I spent some time with my good friend, Ryan Williams, over in California,

Starting point is 00:40:55 He owns company called Industry Threadworks. And we were talking, he's, if you don't know what you want, the best thing to do is figure out what you don't want. I have you calling from the universe right now that it's like next year. I don't like being in Utah. I grew up there and I just like, I'm bored of it now. Lions, not sheep is really the only thing keeping me in Utah.

Starting point is 00:41:10 So I have this thought that next year, I'd love to try this. I'm trying to figure out if it's what I truly want to do again. But I want to pick out 12 places I've all. always wanted to live around the world, both foreign and, sorry, domestic and international, and go live in a place for 30 days at a time for 12 months straight. So let's go to Nashville, go to Dubai, go to Amsterdam, go to San Diego, come out here to Maui, just literally try 12 different places and figure out what do I, what do I don't like, what do I vibe with, what kind of lifestyle do I want slow and isolated on an island? Do I want the craziness of like

Starting point is 00:41:40 downtown Nashville? Do I want San Diego where it's a little bit of mix of bolt? Do I want to be somewhere where there's like a lot of money. Do I want to be somewhere where there's old money? Do I want to be somewhere where there's community? What is it that I want? Because like right now, like this is kind of the first time in my life where I have options. I have income coming in.

Starting point is 00:41:55 I have a business that I can run from anywhere around the world. I have my coaching business which I can run anywhere. So it's, I literally feel like now is the first time my entire life that I have no life overhead. I have no girlfriend, no dogs, no kids, nothing to take care of. And it's like, why not full center, man? What does it like to live in Germany?

Starting point is 00:42:10 What is it like to live in Dubai? What is it like to be a little bachelor in Nashville? I'll just go take my car, ship them around the world, wherever I go. I'm like, let's explore, let's have fun. Let's figure out what I want and what I don't want. And from there, I guess we'll see, man. I don't know. I'm just on this journey where I'm like, the universe is sending messages to me every day

Starting point is 00:42:27 in directions where I want to go. And I'm like, I'm just going to listen. I'm just going to completely surrender and listen to it and see where it takes me. I love it, brother. I'm going to live vicariously through you as a very happily married man with four boys and living the dream myself. But I'm going to watch the journey. And if you need some connections in Nashville,

Starting point is 00:42:44 I'm well connected there. I get you on the country music artist scene. If you want, anybody who will go with? I'll shoot you my number after this and we'll stay in touch. Alex, it's been a pleasure, brother. A lot of knowledge. I know we could talk for twice this long. Maybe it'll be a part two where we're talking about Pelaide's halfway to exit or something.

Starting point is 00:43:02 Yeah, let's do it, man. I greatly appreciate the opportunity on here. And thanks for letting me have a platform to share some value with your audience. And I hope they take some nuggets out of here and run with it, man. I love seeing good people win. I love helping others and whatever I can do to help serve you in your audience. I'm always here for you. I appreciate it.

Starting point is 00:43:18 You did it. Talk to me about where everybody can keep up with you, your coaching, all that stuff. Drop some links or anything like that you got. Yeah, Instagram is really the biggest platform that I'm on right now. So it's at Alex Irby, UR-B-I-E. Everybody gets confused because all my handles are at Alex Irby, but my last name is truly Urban. It was just a nickname.

Starting point is 00:43:38 Some girl gave me in high school and the username was available. but Alex Serby on pretty much every platform to Instagram I'm most active on. So it's the best way. There you go. To find him. Alex Herbie on Instagram, a good follow. Great photographer as well, as he mentioned. He's very good.

Starting point is 00:43:53 He's humble, but it's amazing. I love it. You know where to find us, folks, the radcast.com. Search for Alex Urban. You'll find all the highlight clips, the full episode and everything we've got from today's full and amazing added value episode. You know to find me? I'm at Ryan Alford on all the platform.

Starting point is 00:44:10 There's a big blue check mark. I had it before you could buy it. We'll see you next time on the Radcast. To listen or watch full episodes, visit us on the web at the radcast.com or follow us on social media at our Instagram account, the dot rad. dot cast or at Ryan Alford. Stay radical.

Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - The E-commerce Success Blueprint with Alex Urban

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