Helping you be mindful in business and life. Sharing thoughts on the journey from nothing to everything.
Joined January 2023
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Mindful Exec retweeted
Halloween question for founders:
What's the scariest thing you've found on your own website?
Mine: a new client came to us, and in the first audit we found their entire site set to noindex.
Nobody had noticed.
Mindful Exec retweeted
Got on a call with a guy who spent $800 on a prototype. It made $800,000.
He was almost in tears about it. Because it wasn't more.
A friend had to tell him to stop moaning.
His parents wanted him to be a doctor. He studied economics instead, became a trader in the City of London, then ran 40 salespeople across three real estate offices in Spain. Then he moved to Dubai and lost all his money.
He was 36 when we talked. When my team started working with him, he was doing about $5M a year on generic products.
Then he flipped the whole model.
He told me media buying was the last thing he did. Before a product goes live, he tests the price. He tried $100, $120 and $150, and $120 won.
And he built his own product design studio in Romania, because of one rule he runs on:
"If in your business products are variables you're willing to change to make money, you do
not have a business."
Why this matters:
If you sell the same generic product as 50 other stores, your only levers are price and ads.
Somebody always has a cheaper price or a bigger budget, so you're renting your revenue until they show up.
When you own the design, nobody can copy your listing overnight. Your best ad can run for a year, because there's nothing identical sitting underneath it.
And look at that price test. $120 beat both $100 and $150. Most people launch at $100 to be safe, or guess $150 to look premium. He let the market pick before he spent a dollar on media buying.
How to steal it this week:
1. Take your best seller and list the 3 things customers complain about in your reviews and your competitors' reviews.
2. Get a prototype quote that fixes the top complaint. His cost $800.
3. Before launch, test 3 price points on the same offer. Let the data pick the price, not your gut.
4. Only then start scaling the ads.
Generic products build revenue. Owned products build companies.
Mindful Exec retweeted
We're headed to Los Angeles, Austin and New York in 2027!
@iamshackelford and the team are working on planning for 3 events in 1 week in your city next year.
Small intimate rooms of 100-125 people. A strong mix of Founder, Operators, and the Individual Contributors doing the work at brands and agencies.
This isn't a show with booths and panels, but a mix of tactical education along with curated roundtables for a single focus.
In roughly ~6.5 hours, we'll feed you breakfast and lunch, educate you, help you solve your own challenges, and network you with 125 local brands and agencies doing the work.
Los Angeles (Venice Beach)
Tue, Jan 19: Acquisition
Wed, Jan 20: Retention
Fri, Jan 22: AI & Ops
Austin, Texas
Mon, Feb 22: Acquisition
Wed, Feb 24: Retention
Fri, Feb 26: AI & Ops
New York City
Mon, Mar 15: Acquisition
Wed, Mar 17: Retention
Fri, Mar 19: AI & Ops
The tickets are now available for all shows on the site.
Use code EARLYBIRD and grab em at half off.
Learn more here: commerceroundtable.com/roads…
Mindful Exec retweeted
To answer the question: taste and judgment stay scarce.
Prada still needed people to decide what the campaign should feel like. Where AI helps fashion brands is the work behind it: product data, sizing, stock and merchandising. That frees up more time for the craft.
High fashion is not exactly my usual territory but look at this... Prada’s entire holiday campaign was drawn by hand. Probably the biggest thing they put out all year and the whole point of it is that people spent bloody ages making it.
This is what all the doomers are missing about AI. Once a machine can make the image for free, the thing that sets you apart is that a human did it. Human craft becomes the luxury good. Prada have worked it out before most economists have.
Funnily enough I wrote about exactly this today... what stays scarce when intelligence is free. I'll link the full piece below for anyone interested
Mindful Exec retweeted
The TikTok Shop playbook behind Grüns, Ridge, and HexClad 🛍️
Most TikTok Shop programs fail for the same reasons. Brands send too few samples, get too few videos back, and skip building a creator community.
In San Diego, @alexrudolphh and @TylerBrechbiel, co-founders of TBAR Partners powered by Common Thread Collective, shared the affiliate playbook they run for some of the biggest brands on TikTok Shop.
Whether you're just launching or trying to scale what's already working, this playbook gives you a clear place to start.
Watch the full replay 👇
youtu.be/x8Fo_7NkjZ8
Mindful Exec retweeted
There's a 100% legal way to get early reviews on Amazon.
Most sellers still find a way to waste it. ✅
Mindful Exec retweeted
Don’t just give AI your final draft.
Give it everything - the good and the bad.
Mindful Exec retweeted
A shopper can close your pop-up and still be interested in buying.
They might want to:
- Read reviews.
- Compare products.
- Check sizing.
Once they’ve had time to look around, they may be more open to signing up.
That’s where @AliaPopups Smart Triggering comes in.
It looks at how people browse your site to decide who should see your popup again and when to show it during the same visit.
The message, design, and offer stay the same. Alia adjusts the timing.
Alia’s Smart Triggering can capture up to 40% more signups.
And with BFCM around the corner, those extra signups matter.
The more shoppers you capture now, the more time you have to build relationships with them before your promotions go live.
You can introduce them to your products, learn what they're interested in, and bring them back when it's time to buy.
That's especially valuable during BFCM, when ad costs rise, and competition for shoppers gets tougher.
Reaching people already on your email and SMS lists is more cost-effective than paying to acquire that traffic again.
So if you haven't looked at your onsite acquisition strategy ahead of BFCM, now's the time.
Every visitor who leaves without signing up is a missed opportunity to grow your owned audience.
My link gets you a special 30-day free trial of Alia so you can try Smart Triggering before BFCM: hubs.la/Q04y08-G0
🤝 Paid partnership
Mindful Exec retweeted
Met a guy in Vegas whose brother sold his company for $8M and was broke 3 years later.
He owns 40 laundromats
Won't bet more than $25 a hand because of it.
I was out there for a conference earlier this year.
After the last session I went and sat at a blackjack table to unwind a bit.
This older guy sits down next to me.
Everyone at the table is throwing down hundreds and he's just putting down $25 chips every hand.
Honestly I thought he was some retiree killing time.
We got talking between hands. He asked what brought me to Vegas, so I told him about the conference and what I do.
Then I asked him the same thing.
He said he owns laundromats. 40 of them across Arizona and New Mexico.
So now I'm confused. Why is a guy with 40 laundromats betting the table minimum?
I asked him why he plays so small.
That's when he started talking about his brother.
Said his brother was always the smarter one, better at business than him.
Built a real estate company and sold it for $8M.
Within 3 years it was all gone. Gambling, cars, trying to look rich every single day.
He's 67 now and still working because he has to.
Then he told me how he sees it.
"$25 for me is entertainment. The moment I start throwing down $500, that's just ego. I don't need the money from this table."
Said he brings $1K every trip, and when it's gone he's done. Been doing it like that for years.
He cashed out about $400, stopped playing and just sat there watching everybody else.
I left that table down $300 for the record.
Easily one of the craziest encounters I've had in a while.
Mindful Exec retweeted
Elon has done it. Grok Bot is officially the best AI SEO agent on the planet.
it’s going to create more millionaires in 2026 than crypto ever did.
don’t bookmark this if it crosses your timeline.
just paste this entire thing into Grok Bot.
thank me later.
Mindful Exec retweeted
"My CPCs jumped 40% this month and I didn't change anything"
Get this every single October and it's almost never the account
Here's what's actually happening, in the order I'd check it:
1. Everyone else's budget went up
The auctions you're entering just got more expensive
Your competition is ramping up spend, and the price of every link click is going up with it
Most common reason
2. You're being compared to a different competitor set
As budgets rise, brands who were capped all year start showing up in auctions they couldn't afford in July
The pocket of the audience you're targeting has more sharks in it now
3. Your quality slipped relative to theirs
AD rank is relative to your product feed
If three competitors improved their feed and titles in September and you didn't, you're now paying more for that same position
4. Your impression share report is your best frirend
Search Lost IS (budget) means you're capped and it's time to spend more
Search Lost IS (rank) means you're losing the auction and money won't fix it
Most brands raise budget for both
5. Seasonality adjustments aren't set
Smart bidding looks at the past to determine future bids
It doesn't understand that it's almost Black Friday unless you set adjustments
What I'd actually do:
Check lost IS first
If it's due to ad rank, the fix is the feed, the landing page or the offer - not the bid
If it's budget, you have headroom you're not taking, and that's a good problem
And accept that some of this is just the price of November
Rising CPCs aren't always a failure
They're the market telling you what everyone
else is willing to pay
Mindful Exec retweeted
Commission UGC is cracked.
You pay creators a % of the ad spend behind their videos instead of a fee upfront.
Which means:
- a video that flops costs you $0 in creator fees
- a video that wins pays the creator more the harder you scale it
- you can test 20 creators without a 20 creator budget
- creators care about hook rate, because that's what gets them paid
Paying per video means paying for files and hoping 1 of them works.
With commission, the only videos that cost you anything are the ones already making you money.
And the creators who keep making winners start choosing your brand over everyone else's, because that's where they earn the most.
If you're running ads already, there's very little reason to pay for UGC any other way.
Maybe hourly, but this is good too.
Mindful Exec retweeted
Your receipt is not permission to push harder.
The customer opened it for an order update. Keep that job first. Getting greedy with the attention can cost you the trust that makes another purchase possible.
@jimmykim @ecomchasedimond
Mindful Exec retweeted
founder: "i signed 5 clients off 1,000 cold emails. how do i improve that?"
me: "you DON'T."
founder: "but it's only 0.5%."
me: "mate, that's actually strong."
founder: "so what do i fix?"
me: "nothing. leave the rate alone."
founder: "then how do i get more clients?"
me: "1,000 emails got you 5."
me: "so send 10,000."
Mindful Exec retweeted
Giving your process a fancy name doesn’t help sign you clients
It can help make people understand what you do faster
But people actually buy your stuff due to these 4 things...
1. Positioning that's unique AND something the prospect cares about
2. A good offer
3. Good payment terms
4. Proof
Not just because your process has a fancy name
Mindful Exec retweeted
In 90 days, we booked 1,300+ calls for a b2b org using cold email.
Steal the entire setup:
1. We "restructured daily sends" - not a natural phrase. like you cant really 'restructure sends' maybe just simply say we dropped daily volume from 10k/day to 3500/day, which highlights a conceptual issue: dropping volume is by 2/3rds is unlikely to work at scale when trying to book 1300+ meetings. maybe the better point to convey here is we broke down 10k/day in sends to 3 batches of 3500/day each testing a different target audience because from a planned 10,000/day down to 3,500/day for this account.
2. Instead of spraying + praying, we used an account-level list. 1 row = 1 buyer. Generic emails (info@, support@) where a named contact could not be verified.
3. PCPL is the ONLY metric we score on. Under 500 prospects-per-positive-reply = ready to scale. Over 1,000 = move contacts to a new campaign.
4. The 4 WHYs framework in every email script. Why Me (the prospect), Why Now, Why You (the solution being sold), Why Should I (the prospect) follow your CTA.
5. 20-minute Intro Call as the conversion point, not a 30-minute discovery. A 20 qualifies harder. Prospects who agree to a 20 are signaling they only need 20 minutes to decide whether to keep going. The booked-to-completed rate climbs as a result.
6. 5-minute SLA on every positive reply. A real person calling them back not an AI SDR.
7. Inboxes below 1.5% reply rate get removed from the sending pool. from the pool. Bounce ceilings, approval timeouts, daily testing, all built in.
The BIGGEST lesson here:
Volume + perfect infra, copy, & list building practices = meetings on the calendar.
There is no simpler way to put it, this just works.
PS
Want us to run an outbound system like this for your company?
We’ll set up high volume cold email campaigns that put calls on your calendar.
If you don’t get qualified leads in 7 days, you don’t pay.
We’re taking on 1-2 more companies this month, see if you qualify here: hyperke.com/chat-apply
Mindful Exec retweeted
“we need to improve our objection handling”
My sellers closing cold traffic above 40% only RARELY get objections.
Whenever a seller of mine hits that level, the team wants to hear how they did it.
So I play the recordings.
9/10 times, it’s a simple straightforward sale with no objections.
TL;DR:
If you’re having to improve your objection handling skills...
NGMI.
Mindful Exec retweeted
GTM in 2026 in a nutshell:
LEVEL 1: Traffic generation
Drive as many of the right people to your brand as you can.
There are 4 channels:
• Content (LinkedIn, X, YouTube, SEO)
• Ads (Google, LinkedIn, Meta, Reddit)
• Outbound (cold email, LinkedIn DMs, cold calls, warm outbound)
• Partnerships (agency programs, affiliates, referrals, integrations).
For outbound we use Instantly(.)ai, HeyReach(.)io, Nooks, Clay, and Findymail.
LEVEL 2: Lead capture
Turn that attention into a contact:
• lead magnets
• webinars
• newsletter
• community
• social engagement
• product signups.
LEVEL 3: Lead nurture
Keep them warm with:
• email flows
• retargeting ads
• SDR touchpoints
• educational content
LEVEL 4: Conversion
5 ways to turn a visitor → an application:
• case studies
• testimonials
• free tools
• resources
• video demos
LEVEL 5: Qualification
• Every submission is auto-enriched and qualified with Clay + HubSpot
• Approved leads get nurtured 9+ times before they ever talk to an AE.
• Disqualified leads get an email, and the call is cancelled.
LEVEL 6: Retention and expansion
• Keep and grow accounts through recurring services
—
Sure, not everything fits EVERY business.
But I can promise you 1 thing:
The more of this you have, the better.