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Topic

Growth

A collection of 26 issues

Reflections on 24 years from freelancer through building one of the first Shopify studios in the world through burnout and back to soloist

I’ve been reflecting on how ultimately none of this matters—how good we are at our craft, who we can serve and help, the processes we develop, or the results—if we can’t master sales and marketing and storytelling.

Your website probably doesn’t really matter

What matters is your ability to tell a good story, build connections, and engage on a human level.

How can you expect to produce beauty and harmony if your marketing team isn’t “singing from the same song sheet”?

In order to maximize marketing performance, you need to reach the right audience at the right time with the right message.

If your ROAS is slipping, it’s not too late to optimize brand positioning, content, and storytelling!

Imagine you have 5 seconds to capture visitors’ attention—and convert them from “I’ve never heard of this company” to “I love them so much I’ll buy whatever they’re selling!”

#UnderdogChallenge—my 23-year journey from soloist to agency principal and back in under 500 words

After nearly 23 years, I’m back on the tools, working directly with amazing clients—designing and building beautiful, elegant, highly functional Shopify stores—learning and growing and achieving things I’d forgotten I was capable of.

The paradox of increasingly “powerful” ecommerce tools and realizing ultimate potential

As tools become more powerful, they also become more complex, which means less users are able to take advantage of that power. True power comes from leveraging simpler, more elegant, more pragmatic systems that combined enable outcomes that are greater than the sum of the parts.

Building strong foundations with Shopify based on the fundamental principles of ecommerce success—part 2

If you are not building your business on a foundation of core ecommerce fundamentals, you are wasting time, money, headspace, and resources. You are likely focusing on the minutiae and things that don’t matter now.

You have a vision—what about your objectives, strategy, plans, and goals?

Goal-setting is hard. Where do you start? What’s the difference between an objective and a goal? How do you keep track of goals or measure success or failure?

Is it time for a complexity audit?

If you’re struggling with complexity and are finding yourself endlessly tweaking and fiddling with things—but unsure what’s really going to make a difference—perhaps it’s time to assess the complexity of your business to see where you can rebase to the simplest foundations to build upon.

Why is “strategy” a dirty word?

As founders, principles, and leaders, it’s hard for us to acknowledge and admit that, while we might have a strong vision for where we are going, we probably don’t have a clear plan for how we’re going to get there. And, even if we do, it’s likely incomplete or we’re too close to it.