Authentic.ly

"We don't need a CMO, we have an agency." I cringe a bit every time a founder says it to me. An agency is paid to run its channel, and the good ones run it well. Nobody in that setup is paid to ask whether the channel should be getting the money in the first place. At an 8-figure company I worked with, paid search had brought in 24,597 clicks. When we finally tied the marketing to actual transactions, there were no extra sales behind any of them. In my experience agencies are efficient and rarely effective, and that's mostly not their fault. Being effective needs someone above them deciding where the next dollar goes, which agency gets to spend it and when to stop, and in a lot of stores nobody has that job. If you're not sure your agency is working on the right thing, message me and tell me what they're spending on. If you'd rather read first, check "Common Sense Conversion": https://lnkd.in/dBQu6_BB

Votre salarié rentre définitivement en France. Sans la CFE, il attend trois mois avant d'être couvert par la Sécu. Le montage CFE et complémentaire reprend la logique que tout le monde connaît en France, Sécu et mutuelle. La Caisse des Français de l'Étranger prend en charge la base, et l'assureur complémentaire couvre le reste à charge. Sur les comparateurs, ce couplage revient parfois moins cher qu'une assurance internationale au premier euro. Il faut nommer les choses avec lucidité : une partie de cet écart vient de cotisations CFE qui ne couvrent pas encore son coût réel. Ce déséquilibre ne durera pas, et l'écart se réduira quand les tarifs seront corrigés. Je défends pourtant ce montage, pour ce qu'il garantira encore quand l'écart aura fondu : la CFE ne pratique aucune sélection médicale ni liée à l'âge, y compris pour un salarié qui part avec une maladie chronique ; elle donne le droit de revenir se faire soigner en France, ce que les assurances de droit local n'accordent jamais ; au retour définitif, le salarié évite le délai de carence de trois mois de la Sécurité sociale. Pour une entreprise, c'est la continuité des soins qui justifie ce choix, quel que soit l'écart de prix demain. Je compare les trois options (CFE seule, CFE et complémentaire, premier euro) point par point dans la première édition de L'Expat côté Santé : https://lnkd.in/ef7pYy8H

Fixing your checkout usually makes more money than your next campaign. Most $3M+ brands skip it because it's boring. I keep seeing this with ecommerce founders. Growth slows down, so they sign off on a bigger ad budget or a new agency. Meanwhile the checkout has a step nobody needs and the email flows haven't been touched since the day someone set up Klaviyo. Nobody gets excited about it, so it keeps getting pushed to next quarter, even though it's usually the fastest money in the business. What I'd check first on any store: 1.⁠ ⁠How many clicks it takes to get from a product page to a finished order 2.⁠ ⁠How fast the site loads on a phone, on a normal connection 3.⁠ ⁠When anyone last edited your welcome, abandoned cart and post-purchase emails I grew iChess.net to 7 figures with zero outside money on exactly this kind of stuff: email, funnels and selling to our own list, done well, over and over. We sold it, and today it's part of Chess.com. So I started a newsletter about the boring stuff that makes ecommerce brands money. It's called Common Sense Conversion: https://lnkd.in/d7cfUF2r

AI can build a brand a full attribution dashboard in a day now. It won't tell you that nobody has emailed your list in a month. That part is great. A dashboard that used to take weeks to months is a one-day project now. But a dashboard only answers the questions you put on it. Most of the ones I see track ad spend down to the single ad and say nothing about the cheapest revenue a store has, which is the people who already bought from it. So before you build another report, check two things by hand. When did your list last get an email that wasn't a sale? And what happens when someone looks at a product and leaves without buying? If the answers are "a while ago" and "nothing", start there and build the dashboard after. The new Common Sense Conversion is about stores that make most of their money from one channel, more here: https://lnkd.in/d7cfUF2r

I’ve seen 8-figure brands fall apart almost overnight. Nearly all their money came from one channel. Usually it’s SEO or paid search. It works for years, so the brand keeps putting everything into it, and then one algorithm update or one jump in ad costs and most of the revenue is gone. Once a brand is making real money, stability starts to matter as much as growth. The organic channels also feed each other. SEO helps you show up in AI answers and activity on social helps your Google Business Profile. And your reviews and trust signals need to line up everywhere people look you up. If one channel pays most of your bills, I’d start there before we talk about growth. I’m writing the long version for next month’s Common Sense Conversion. Subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/dBQu6_BB

Don’t Mistake Processing Time for Lack of Capability And when the processing is done in a time that suits the individual a team can get brilliant results. ✅ More time to process means: ✅ Time to reflect ✅ Time to play the information back ✅ Time to turn the information on its head ✅ Time to think about the implications ✅ Time to think about the positives ✅ Time to think about the negatives ✅ Time to pick apart an argument More time to process doesn't mean: ❌ Not paying attention ❌ Not engaged ❌ Not interested ❌ Not capable ❌ Not serious ❌ Not a team player ❌Not supportive Curious about creating a neuroinclusive culture within your team or across your business? Get your FREE download of my tips to start Harnessing the Skills of Neurodivergent Employees here - https://lnkd.in/e5XVk2a2 When neuroinclusion comes first leading teams gets easier. Do you agree? #neurodivergenceatwork #autismprocessingtime #neurodiversity #communicationtakestime