Welcome to Osom to Know! Today’s episode features a dynamic discussion with guest Adam Robinson 💡 He is the Founder/CEO of Retention.com and RB2B. Adam bootstrapped Retention.com to $22m ARR in 4 years by helping ecommerce stores identify their anonymous website visitors and send more highly-targeted triggered emails. He launched RB2B in March of 2024 to help SaaS companies identify anonymous website visitors and see their LinkedIn profiles in Slack for free! Adam lives in Austin, TX with his wife Helen and daughter Emma. ➡️ Initially intending to delve into cart abandonment for e-commerce, the conversation organically transitioned into an in-depth exploration of building a brand on LinkedIn. Adam’s dramatic pivot to focus on building a personal social media profile to address an awareness problem for his company a year and a half ago was particularly enlightening. Join us as we delve into Adam’s experiences with media, LinkedIn, video content, and the impact of his personal brand on his business ventures. Get ready for a deep dive into the world of content creation, social media strategy, and the power of resonance on LinkedIn. Stay tuned for insights on abandoned cart recovery, AI-driven chatbots, and much more from our insightful discussion. This is an episode you definitely won’t want to miss!

Maciej Nowak [00:00:00]:
Hello, everyone. My name is Maciej Nowak, and welcome to the Osom to Know podcast where we discuss all things related to building your website. And this episode is special because I have a special guest. Welcome Adam Robinson, founder of retention.com, which makes roughly 20,000,000 US dollars in annual recurring revenue. And I have to say I have failed miserably. We were supposed to talk about cart abandonment for your ecommerce, and we took an a 1 hour deep dive into building your brand on LinkedIn. And I’m not unhappy about it. So without further ado, jump with me into a fascinating story, how Adam was figuring out his style, which now captivates his business audience.

Maciej Nowak [00:00:40]:
If you don’t want to miss new episodes and keep learning, subscribe to our Osom to know newsletter at osomstudio.com/newsletter. This this is osomstudio.com/newsletter. If you watch this on YouTube, give us a thumb and subscribe to the channel. This means a word to us. Without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Adam Robinson.

Lector [00:01:09]:
Hey, everyone. It’s good to have you here. We’re glad you decided to tune in for this episode of the Osom to Know podcast.

Maciej Nowak [00:01:18]:
Hello, Adam. Thank you very much for, for for joining the pod.

Adam Robinson [00:01:22]:
Thank you for having me. I’m happy to be here.

Maciej Nowak [00:01:25]:
Yeah. My pleasure. My pleasure. So, I would like to talk about a couple of things. Main, let’s say there are 2 things. So 1, a little bit of a of a history on retention.com, how how did it happen? And then I would love to deep dive do a deep dive into cart abandonment so that our listeners can, learn a bit about, you know, some hands on, let’s say, stuff too. But before that, I would love to ask you this question because when I go to your profile, it seems like, you know, on LinkedIn or or wherever, it seems like you’re a one man media company. You know? Can can you tell me a little bit more about this?

Adam Robinson [00:02:03]:
First of all, I’m definitely not a one man media company. I have a lot of a lot of people that are making this this media possible.

Maciej Nowak [00:02:11]:
It’s it’s like what? It’s like, you know, overnight success, have, you know, 10 years in brewing, right,

Adam Robinson [00:02:18]:
in preparation. So so, what this is all about, this, like, this, like, media or whatever, is, like, a year and a half ago, and this sort of is intertwined with the history of our company. A year and a half ago, we thought that the biggest Shopify stores were our ideal customer profile, and the penetration of products like ours into that market was, like, low single digits percent. None of them were using anything like it, basically. And I was like, okay. This is an awareness problem. And, like, what is the quickest way to spread awareness in the world today? And I think if you’re willing, it’s by building up a personal social media profile. Everybody’s on social media nonstop, The the you know, you’re on social media to connect with people, not to connect with brands.

Adam Robinson [00:03:18]:
So if the idea were to build up the retention.com page, like, I don’t think it would have done it as effectively as as as as sort of me. And then, you know, the the journey has been interesting. Like, right now, I’m actually not even focused on what we’re talking about anymore. We’re we’re currently in the process of launching a product with a similar technology that instead of selling to Shopify stores, it sells to b to b companies, like, you know, software as a service and, like, you know, whoever, security and health care and all that stuff. And it’s like the the the media definitely spread awareness on the ecom side in the ecosystem in a really powerful and compelling way. So much so that I would recommend that anybody do it. You can LinkedIn, especially, like, if you’re a CEO and you’re selling b to b, get a ghostwriter, have somebody start posting for you, see if you could you know, there’s there’s a guy who’s also in the Shopify ecosystem called Stuart Chaney. He’s got a company called Revo and so a bunch of other Shopify apps.

Adam Robinson [00:04:27]:
And he asked me, he’s like, you know, I’m kinda willing to do this work in public stuff like you. I think I have an awareness problem. You know, do you think I should post on LinkedIn? And I was like, yes. Like, it may not be quite as compelling as the stuff I’m writing from a work in public perspective, but, like, I just found that even on the ecom side, it was doing things you know, you asked Stewart, you’re like, what’s it doing for you? He’s like, I’m not exactly sure, but I know it’s doing something very powerful. You know? Just like making people aware of who you are. And then, you know, now that I’m I’m entire I’ve I’ve been writing content. So I was writing content trying to attract this ecommerce ecosystem until Labor Day of last year, then switched it entirely to aim at revenue leaders at software companies. And then all of a sudden, my experience became so much more resonant.

Adam Robinson [00:05:20]:
Does that make sense? Because, like, the whole time that I was doing it for Ecom people, I was like, I was I was really I was talking a ton about my own business because there’s problems that you and I share with any other you know, with somebody who’s running a corner store, we all share the same. Fucking employees sucks. Like, people have whatever. Right? Like but beyond that, I don’t have much to say to an ecom to a Shopify founder. Like, nothing my my day is, like, totally different, and and, like, the problems within my bid business beyond people problems in just very basic sort of, like, fundamental, like, well, here’s my you know, make great products. Right? Like, have a great product market fit. Like but beyond that, it’s just a totally different world. Right? Like and and, like, I’m not gonna be able to put out like, Nick Sharma is sitting there making landing pages all day.

Adam Robinson [00:06:08]:
Like, of course, he’s gonna be able to, like, write content from a place where it’s more resonant than me, you know, to Shopify owners or whatever. So around Labor Day last year, I started writing about my experience aimed at sales, marketing, founders, like, whatever of software companies, and and it was just unbelievable what happened. Like, a, those people are living on LinkedIn, whereas, like, I don’t think the Shopify founders are. They’re more on Twitter, but, like, the ecosystem people on Shopify like, agencies, vendors, like, it’s really important that they know you too. So I think that’s why it’s worth it basically for to start posting on LinkedIn. But, like, man, on the b to b side, it, like, really like, it generates calls and, you know, sign ups for our prod we have a freemium product, so, like, it actually generates ICP, ideal customer profile business, like, unbelievably well. In the, you know so there there’s just a lot of interesting lessons there. I don’t know how you look.

Adam Robinson [00:07:12]:
If you’re selling into ecom and you’re not an ecom person, I think you’ll always struggle with this problem. It’s like, well, how you know, I didn’t know I was contemplating solving it by, like, getting somebody else to do a podcast with me or something who, like, was kinda like a, you know, a $1,000,000 Shopify founder or something like that who, like, was also a creator or something like that. But, but, yeah, it’s it’s it’s just an interesting deal. Now, you know, we we’re doing a lot I’m sorry about that. We’re doing a lot with, with video. I got I have a team of I guess I have you know, I’m doing a lot on LinkedIn and then putting a lot of video on LinkedIn. So, like, I have a LinkedIn consultant that basically helps me with topic selection, kinda like concocting the hook, like, what the post should be, and then he edits it and makes it perfect or whatever. Then we have people that the what’s what comes back from those posts is so prolific in terms of inbound connections and DMs and stuff.

Adam Robinson [00:08:13]:
We actually have people, like, managing our inbox and turning that activity into whatever we want, either calls or, you know, DM me to get on a wait list for something or, like, or whatever. And then there’s we have 2 full time video people, like, sort of the strategist and director, and then we have a video producer and a couple of outsourced editors. But that’s not only for me. That’s like we’re making other video for the ecom business that I’m no longer working on. We’re making a ton of video over there too. We’re

Maciej Nowak [00:08:42]:
Yeah. Yeah. The the yeah. So so for me, this is amazing how much video content you are you are posting. And also, you know, this is the reason how I I like how we connected because I I am basically bombarded because of all of the other, like, connections we share. You are nonstop on my radar. That’s why I reached out to talk about this a little bit because this is I I have a feeling this is great story, and you already unpacked a lot of a lot of interesting, like, I don’t know, avenues that there are a couple of avenues. And I wanted to ask you because you mentioned that you changed the attitude from, like, changed, let’s say, strategy from targeting for ecommerce people to, to a b to b software.

Maciej Nowak [00:09:29]:
Right? So more about your own personal story, let’s say. What was why was that? Was it because you are launching a new product and this was like a preparation of the like, ground preparation for that new new product that is that is fresh? Or was it for retention.com, like, I know, brand awareness, let’s say?

Adam Robinson [00:09:52]:
Yeah. So so there’s a very important nuance that I just wanna highlight. Our company has not pivoted. Like, the business selling into ecom companies is the same as it always was. I’m just working on this new product, and I pivoted my media brand to talk about that.

Maciej Nowak [00:10:12]:
This is this is what I wanted.

Adam Robinson [00:10:13]:
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And and we’re attempting to replace what my media brand was doing over there with, basically, a show about this guy, Kyle, who you know, our our whole sales motion over there is, like, events, basically, like, you know, like, small and medium sized in person events. And the show is called events that don’t suck because it’s like, you know, we’re trying to, like, do something different than trade shows or whatever. And then we’re also doing a video effort to, like, profile all of our customer our our, like, top tier customers called the art of excellence, that aren’t, like, case studies. It’s just, like, telling the stories of these, like I mean, it’s some of the stories of, like, the top shopify entrepreneurs are incredible. Because usually, they got there so quickly because they just created the perfect product at the perfect time with the perfect, like, marketing flywheel or whatever, and it’s just unbelievable how much ground was covered, how quickly.

Adam Robinson [00:11:03]:
So, anyway, why did I pivot my media brand? And then why are we doing this other product? That those are the those are the core those are the questions. Right? So so I started off with a ghostwriter because I was very afraid to jump into the pool of social social media. I’m not on social media in my personal life, and, you know, I had never done anything organic social media that had I just never done it. So I read this book, which everybody should read whether you pursue creating a personal brand for yourself or not. You should read Dave Gerhardt’s book, Founder Brand, because it really articulates the argument in favor of doing it. And at its core, it’s kinda like most businesses were started for a reason. Right? So, like, the founder story is often the reason that the business started, and compelling businesses can have compelling stories. And there’s this other dynamic where, as I said before, like, the world is set up for people to connect to social media profiles and hear personal stories and all that stuff.

Adam Robinson [00:12:11]:
So, I would say read that book. So he makes the argument for it. It’s very articulate. And he’s like, you should just go put 30 minutes a day in your calendar and start tweeting or whatever, right, or LinkedIn. You know, pick a platform. Just start start tweeting. Right? And, like, I’m sitting there reading that, and I’m, like, reflecting. Right? Like, I started my first company 10 years ago.

Adam Robinson [00:12:38]:
Who I am now as an entrepreneur and what I’m good at. Right? Like, the decisions that I will make when, you know, deciding what product to bring to market and how to market it in the team that I wanna work with, in the speed with which it all happens. Like, now compared to the first company because I came before I started my first company, I was a credit default swap trader. I knew nothing nothing about it. It wasn’t like I was in tech sales and, like, I started a tech company. Like, I knew nothing about being an entrepreneur. So, like, the me today is literally like LeBron James compared to the me who is playing 7th grade basketball 10 years ago. It’s a miracle we survived.

Adam Robinson [00:13:25]:
But, like, we did. I’m here. So I’m sitting there and I’m like, I’m not just gonna tweet against somebody like me who’s been tweeting for 10 years, having no idea what the game is. Right? Like like, this Exactly.

Maciej Nowak [00:13:41]:
What what what the game? How to stop Yeah.

Adam Robinson [00:13:43]:
Like, the people who are crushing Twitter know something that I don’t know, and I’m not just gonna sit there.

Maciej Nowak [00:13:48]:
And they are different now, versus when they were starting. You know, what what I what they are doing now is totally different when what brought their initial following.

Adam Robinson [00:13:59]:
Yes. I agree with that. In general, you know and and Twitter Twitter, I just use as an example because that’s where the Shopify ecosystem was happening a year and a half ago. And I think it still is, but, like, it was more a year and a half ago. And, like, there are a couple of companies. Like, this company called Triple Whale did an incredible job with this, like, Twitter kind of takeover, and, like, the founders were tweeting about the problems. We were like, what was interesting to me was Triple Whale started after us. We were about the same place from a revenue perspective.

Adam Robinson [00:14:32]:
We only had done cold email, and they only had done organic social media for marketing. And I was like, well, we should both be doing them. We should both trade notes. Like, you show me how to do this Twitter thing. I’ll show you how to, like, you know, do this cold email thing. So I hit him up and I, like, went over there, and, I’m explaining to them our cold email strategy and talking about organic social media. And their head of social at the time, his name was Tommy, or is still Tommy, but he’s not their head of social. He’s like, dude, I think you should just like LinkedIn has a creator versus consumer imbalance that Twitter doesn’t have.

Adam Robinson [00:15:06]:
Twitter’s super competitive. Everybody on Twitter kinda tweets for the most part. Nobody on LinkedIn posts. It’s like 1 to 2 per 1 to 2 percent of active users. Right? So, like

Maciej Nowak [00:15:17]:
I’m just saying it’s it’s it’s obvious when you are saying this. It’s so like, it’s it’s into your face obvious. Like, you know, there’s a couple of people who are posting on LinkedIn. Everyone else is reposting their, you know, company company, you know, what Yeah. Stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Generic stuff, and everyone is congratulating themselves on, unimportant stuff.

Adam Robinson [00:15:39]:
Right. So while the perfect audience the perfect audience for that ecom play may not have been there, it may have been on Twitter, The opportunity to aggregate a decent audience, it was just so much lower hanging fruit on LinkedIn. And Tommy’s like, by the way, I’ll write for you. Right? So you don’t even have to do anything. Like, if you if you don’t even wanna have idea sessions, like, I can just go figure it out. So I was like, okay. That’s kinda compelling. So I started working with him, and then I kinda so I had this weird thing.

Adam Robinson [00:16:12]:
You know, we’re talking about video. So I had this interesting thing happened to me in, like, 2018. Maybe it’s 2017, but I think it was 2018. So, meanwhile, my story is, like, I have this bootstrap 22,000,000 ARR startup right now that I’m very public about called retention.com, which sells into the ecom companies. I’m starting another business unit. It’s under retention.com. It’s called RB and B. It’s at 5 k MRR.

Adam Robinson [00:16:39]:
Right? So it’s like, before retention.com, I had this other company called Robly, which was an email newsletter app in the Mailchimp space. Super hard space. Klaviyo. Right? Like, people don’t realize Klaviyo has made it seem to ecommerce companies like email marketing is not a competitive space. That’s how dominant they are. It it it is and by the way, Mailchimp was even more dominant than that. It’s just Klaviyo really leaned into the Shopify ecosystem then that thing with Shopify Mailchimp happened, and, like, they just won the game after the game had already been won. Email marketing is probably the 2nd oldest SaaS space besides CRM, And there are 3, like, pretty big dominant players, maybe 4 across different sort of verticals within email marketing.

Adam Robinson [00:17:32]:
Then there’s 200 other vendors who are stuck at 2 or 3,000,000, which is it is hypercompetitive with these dom it’s like it’s like, it would be like I like to say, trying to start an email newsletter or marketing automation app is like trying to sell cola against Coke and Pepsi. Like, good luck. You know? Like, everything that Klaviyo does, if you were to start an email if you were to try to start an email newsletter app for ecommerce today, every dollar that Klaviyo spends is gonna go 3 times farther than the dollar that you spend. That’s sort of the general rule. Like, once it’s sort of like there’s, like, an adage that, like, once a company gets more than 60% of, like, a captive audience, you need $3 for everyone they spend to get market share from them. They have, like, almost this it’s it’s not, like, quite it’s it’s like monopolistic returns in that regard. It’s like a a defensibility that’s, like, just because of how big they are. So, anyway, I was trying to figure out what I could do to grow this thing, and I just couldn’t figure anything out because, like, email marketing is so hard.

Adam Robinson [00:18:41]:
And my brother and I don’t know. I’m sure a lot of people have been stuck in this podcast because that’s been my the story of my life. It’s just stuck and unstuck and stuck and unstuck. And, you know, redemption outcome is a little bit stuck right now at this 22,000,000 level. We’ve been there for 4 months. We’ll figure something out. We’ll get unstuck. Hopefully, this new business will unstuck us too.

Adam Robinson [00:18:58]:
But, like, I mean, I was stuck at 3,000,000 ARR with this other business for for years. And when you’re stuck, like, I’m reaching for anything to, like, grow. And, like, when you’re stuck, it’s kinda like never ask the barber if you need a haircut. Like, anyone comes along and tell they’re like, you need to do Facebook ads. I’m like, oh, I do? Like, well, I tried that before, and then we’re like, no. No. No. You didn’t try them with me.

Adam Robinson [00:19:22]:
So, like, these agencies, you know, it’s just like and, of course, it doesn’t work. Right? Because, like, the core problem is a product market fit issue. And, like, what I believe is once you have word-of-mouth for something, there are infinity ways that you can speed it up. And the problem is just picking the most efficient ways to speed it up. Right? If you do not have word-of-mouth, meaning you don’t have actual product market fit, nothing you do will work. It’s just sad, but it’s reality, which is, like, kind of like why this winner take all dynamic happens. So, anyway, like, my brother had sent me this this webinar of this guy named Mitch Harper, who is one of the founders of BigCommerce. And he’s like, dude, like, you’re an example.

Adam Robinson [00:20:05]:
Roble is an example of something not to do in this webinar. And the guy was basically making the argument. He’s like, I don’t know who this company is. They’re asking me to sign up for a free trial of their software. It was like warm you know, his his point was like, you need to warm up with content and build trust before you actually make somebody an offer. Right? That was his point. I watched his webinar. I’m like, well, this actually sounds pretty smart.

Adam Robinson [00:20:23]:
I asked my brother. I’m like, do you wanna just, like, buy his $3,000 a year membership and, like, see, you know, see what his other courses are? So let’s split it. So, like, we bought it, split it, and then I ended up watching all of his stuff. And what BigCommerce tried to do was just take a slice above Shopify. So I was like, oh, like, well, we’re trying to do that in the email space. I need this guy as a business coach, and he was in the info game at the time. It was, like, you know, $4,000 for 1 hour a month or some shit like that. Like, something crazy that these it was like he he offered that as his top tier.

Adam Robinson [00:20:56]:
Here’s the point that I’m finally getting at. So, like, I finally get a call on a call with this guy after watching a 100 hours of his video over, like, a for 2 or 3 week period. And, like, I felt like he was my best friend, literally, because I had just spent a 100 hours with him the prior 3 weeks, and he was teaching me stuff. You know?

Maciej Nowak [00:21:19]:
Yeah. He was teaching me stuff for a 100 hours.

Adam Robinson [00:21:21]:
Yeah. Like, looking back on it, a lot of it didn’t apply to my business and a lot a lot of info products, I think, are just people very definitively recounting their experience with things that you can’t miss. But, like, whatever. Like, I had spent a ton of time with this guy, and he’s talking to me like we’re total strangers. You know? And it was the weirdest I had never had that happen to me before. It was the weirdest feeling ever. And I was like, man, when I have an opportunity to gain this power, it’s not now because, like, none of this is, like, really working, but if and when I have the opportunity to gain this power to my advantage, where I will be operating in a way to where it will just be doing this to people, It will be making people feel like they are my friend so that when I meet them for the first time, they’ve watched me for a 100 hours. Right? I’m doing it.

Adam Robinson [00:22:17]:
So, anyway, the LinkedIn stuff started kinda working, and they were doing a lot of stuff like this these engagement pods or whatever. I don’t know if you ever heard heard like, you can pay people to, like, comment and it gets you followers or whatever.

Maciej Nowak [00:22:29]:
Never heard about this, but it’s I think

Adam Robinson [00:22:32]:
Yeah. Like, there’s this guy, Chase Diamond, who’s got a company that will will do it for you for, like, $500 a month. So, like, you post and then, like, this 10 people

Maciej Nowak [00:22:40]:
will of people.

Adam Robinson [00:22:41]:
Yeah. 10 people will comment on it and and, like, you know, you comment on theirs or whatever. So I don’t do it anymore, but, like, it you know, there there’s a question about whether there’s some bots in this network or, like, whatever. But there’s there’s it’s a good way to get a critical mass of followers. And then a couple of months in, I’m like, I actually wanna start adding video to this. And so I started doing, like, one work in public video a week, like, not really knowing what I was doing. You know? And then I found a producer who was producing my podcast. He’s like, we can help you put these videos out.

Adam Robinson [00:23:18]:
And then he sent me a suggestion. He’s like, here’s a YouTuber talking about, like, what YouTube videos should be. So, basically, it was like a hook, a story, 3 lessons, and a soft CTA. That was, like, the format he recommended. So then for the next 6 months, I tried to put out one every day, but I’d record 5 at a time, and then they produced them. I mean, this was really expensive, but I just wanted to see if I I I could do it. You know? And those you can still see them if you scroll back a year in my LinkedIn feed. I stopped doing it last July, but they’re, like, you know, 2 to 3 minute little lessons that I was experiencing.

Adam Robinson [00:23:57]:
And I didn’t know I I hadn’t found a resonance with the audience yet. I didn’t know what I was talking about. 1 week, I would talk about, like, the spiritual elements of business or some shit. 1 week, I would talk about, like, you know, how you need to fire people fast and, like and then 1 week, I would talk about market whatever. So I was just reaching. And the whole time I was doing it, like, I’d go to trade shows and people like like, 10 people would be like, I watch your videos every day. You know? And I they put they put them on Instagram too, so, like, my wife’s friends were getting served them. So I was going to weddings, and people were saying the same thing, but I just think it was because it was, like, a second order connection.

Adam Robinson [00:24:32]:
But the trade show thing was really interesting. You know? And the issue I had was, like, all of a sudden, I was, like, making the videos, and then the ghostwriter was kind of rewriting a half assed post to go along with it. And, like, I just didn’t feel like it was the best version. And I knew something was wrong because I just knew it. Right? Like, it it felt I knew it was wrong because I didn’t know what I was doing, if that makes sense. I didn’t know why I was doing what I was doing. Right? So then, eventually, I was reaching for help, and there’s this guy. One of the things that got me started on LinkedIn in the first place is I’m in Pavilion, this revenue leader group.

Adam Robinson [00:25:16]:
And Sam Jacobs did a webinar with his LinkedIn coach, Alec Paul, who’s now my LinkedIn coach. So I hit Alec up. I’m like, dude, like, I’m I’m, like, really trying hard at this, and I know something’s wrong. I just don’t know what it is. Can you help? And he’s like, I don’t know about the Twitter side because I was, you know, trying to do some Twitter too. He’s like, LinkedIn, I can definitely help. And so for 2 months with Alec, we tried to make perfect text posts, some with video assets, some with not. And the engagement was better, but it was not ultimately leading to booked demos with Shopify founders.

Adam Robinson [00:25:57]:
Like, kind of another problem we have on the ecom side is, like, it’s such a thin slice of the market that, like, we’re targeting that, like, any social platform is hard. You know? Whereas, like, this b to b side, it’s like, we have a free offer. Everyone with a website who’s not an enterprise company would put it on in one second when they heard the value prop. It’s like, do you want LinkedIn profiles pushed to Slack in real time for free? It’s like, yes. I want that. Click.

Maciej Nowak [00:26:22]:
Yes, sir.

Adam Robinson [00:26:23]:
Yeah. Please. So so so, anyway, what was the the the sort of sequence next was really interesting. So, like, we were kind of floating the the idea of putting this b to b product out in, like, July or August of last year. And we had some people testing the the ecom tech on the b two b side, and they kind of liked it. You know? It like, we were sending them a spreadsheet of people’s email addresses, consumer email addresses, basically, who are on their site, and they’re like, this is pretty cool. Like, I don’t know. And then it was kinda like enough to keep digging.

Adam Robinson [00:27:04]:
We’re like, well, if we rebuild this and instead of resolving it to a consumer email, we resolved it to a LinkedIn profile, that would probably be better. So then we, like, kinda rebuild the tech and started sending that spreadsheet to people, and they were more enthusiastic. Like, this is pretty rad. I mean, you’re sending me everybody on my site and the LinkedIn and, like, all that shit. And but it still wasn’t where I was like, this is magic yet. Like, this because, like, when we started retention.com, no one had ever seen anything like it. They were like, what do you mean you can resolve an anonymous website visitor to a deliverable email address? How’s that pop you know, they they just had never heard of anything. So the b to b side was a little different because there’s a ubiquitous technology that resolves a visitor to a company, just not the person.

Adam Robinson [00:27:54]:
So you go in and you tell somebody you do this. You’re like, well, I already have Clearbit, or, like, I already have 6th Sense. Like, I’m already doing this. You’re like, well, you’re not because, like, whatever. Like, they give me context. Like, well, they’re guessing. You know? So so but it was good enough to where I was, like, I I was talking to Alec. I was like, dude, it’s, like, we’re not booking any demos on the ecom side, but, like, what if we did this for b two b? He’s like, oh, man.

Adam Robinson [00:28:19]:
With what you’re putting out, like, I am 100% confident that this will absolutely crush on the b two b side. So I’m like, okay. Let’s just do a couple month experiment and start this is where I was getting back to getting back to the point I was making before. Let’s start writing about, like, my fucking sales drama last year and, like, you know, my start bootstrapping startups and all that stuff. And I put, just that week, I had talked to, like I think I put a post out kind of recapping. It was, like, early August recapping this this thing that happened to us where, like, we scale our Salesforce way too much because we were getting bad data back, basically. Like, we we were overselling people, and it was like, we were sticking people in these deals that they ended up downsizing and churning off of. But, like, as it was happening in the beginning, it was like, shit.

Adam Robinson [00:29:13]:
Like, we need, you know, the if this is true, then the TAM is massive, and we just need more salespeople going after it. And it was just a nightmare, and, like, the VP sales quit, and we, you know, instead of replacing him, we, like, got rid of, you know, 10 out of 15 of our salespeople at once or 11 out of 5 11 out of 16 or something. And it was terrible, but then it started, like, speeding up again because the environment got so much better in the company or whatever. Everybody knew that it was like a sinking ship at the time. So I put a post out about that, and then a bunch of people hit started hitting me up about, like, this BDR thing because BDR got a lot harder last year. And they’re just like, dude, like, I don’t know what I I I don’t know if these guys are doing anything. You you know? Like like, not not that they’re not working, but, like, like, the their their cold email doesn’t work. Right? Like, it’s the response rates are just, like, so low compared to what they used to.

Adam Robinson [00:30:04]:
So I put this post out that was, like, you know, I spoke to 10 BDR leaders last week, and here’s the 8 surprising and controversial things that they all said. And it’s, like, stuff that basically, it’s, like, you’re either thinking about getting rid of these guys or you already did. That was the sum of the post. Right? And it just crushed in a way that, like, I’ve never seen a post crush on LinkedIn. And then I’m like, holy shit. And then, you know, I kinda thought I know why. I knew why because I I could feel it as I was writing it. I’m like, these like, this is like a sensitivity that I know that I have that everyone’s talking to me about that everyone is afraid to say.

Adam Robinson [00:30:39]:
Right?

Maciej Nowak [00:30:40]:
Exactly. And and it can be full of BDRs now.

Adam Robinson [00:30:43]:
Yeah. It’s like it’s like you’re afraid to admit it to yourself that, like, you gotta get rid of these guys. Right? Like, so then I wrote 3 more posts that weekend, and it was, like, over Labor Day when I was in Santa Fe. And I remember I was like, I gotta write some LinkedIn post. It was 5:30. I’m like, I’m gonna go drink some at night. I’m like, I’m gonna go drink some coffee. Let’s have dinner at 8 with my wife and my friends who are in this, like, in this rental in Santa Fe that we were, like, escaping the heat of Texas.

Adam Robinson [00:31:11]:
And I came back, and I was like, oh, man. I think I just wrote 3 fucking killer posts. And I was like, if these crush, then I know what I’m doing. If they do not, then I don’t. Right? And, like, each one of them, epic. And and then after that, I was like I was like, okay. Like, I know

Maciej Nowak [00:31:32]:
I have my blueprint.

Adam Robinson [00:31:33]:
Well, yeah, it it was like, I know what I’m doing now. Like, this whole feeling of being lost. Right? Like, not even being able to articulate what was wrong with it. But, like, there’s some big themes. Right? Like like, I knew that I wasn’t writing wasn’t the person to talk about the Ecom guys. And then the and, like, I also didn’t know why I was doing what I was doing. Right? Like, now, dude, like, I’m telling you, like, I know exactly what to write to have thousands of people who are founders engaged with my post. I know what to write to have thousands of salespeople engaged.

Adam Robinson [00:32:08]:
I know what to write to have thousands of high level marketers engaged. And I have these 3 audiences, which are all ICP for this new product, and, like, it’s literally a point where it’s like, well, we haven’t, like, hit the founder audience in a while. Like, we need to write one of these posts that’s like, oh, you know, I went from 0 to 1,000,000 2 times, and, like, I’m doing it the 3rd time now. Here are the 5 pieces of advice I’d give to somebody starting out. Whatever. Right? Like, there’s just topics and posts. You know, like, how amazing is that? That, like, that, like but but by the way, like, it took a year. You know? Like, it literally took 12 months.

Maciej Nowak [00:32:44]:
Which is not much in fact because, you know, and this is super interesting. I wasn’t expecting, you know, diverting into, you know, LinkedIn influencer story, but this is like, I am captivated. And also, you know, I have a feeling to spend a lot of time, you know, from the beginning learning the ropes, you know, finding your, you know, your style that that makes an impact. How much time initially it took with all of the videos, podcast, and so on? So, you know, I was saying about media company for a reason. There is at least 1 podcast podcast. Right? You posted, videos. You have written on LinkedIn. So how much in total? Now you are now head of company, and I have a feeling half of your job is, you know, being, out on LinkedIn now.

Adam Robinson [00:33:33]:
Yeah. I actually think I mean, it’s at least at least half. It’s it’s not where I spend half my time, but with especially this role I have now, like, it was really effective from bringing a year ago, from bringing us to 0 awareness in the ecosystem to, like, people were very aware of us in the ecosystem. But with what I’m doing now, it’s actually driving business and building community in the ideal customer profile, and no one else can do no one else can do it. Right? Like, it’s like we’re we’re we’re adding Santosh who’s posting 1 twice a week now, and we’re gonna add this guy, Pete, because we’re trying to, like, build the it’s it’s a freemium self we’re trying to make it freemium a 100% self serve. So we’re trying to do chatbots, AI chatbots instead of people as we scale because I think that, like, the world wants that story. It wants to see the first, like, you know, unicorn that, like, did it with with AI or whatever. So, I mean, I’ll tell you what I do now.

Adam Robinson [00:34:39]:
I’ll tell you what I did then in terms of time. But, like, I’m just looking for ways to to to go even deeper. Right? So so every week, I do a 1 hour strategy call with the consultant, me and Santosh, talking about ideas. And, basically, like, what has hit the last couple weeks? What has been happening in the business that could that could make its way into a good post? Like, a great example is, like, I had a conversation with the founder of this company called Clay, which is like a sales enablement tech. Really but in PLG, they have no salespeople. They have 35 people. They’re a few years in. They’re doing really well.

Adam Robinson [00:35:21]:
My plan was to, right now, try to emulate this company called Jolie, which is a shower head on the d two c side. This guy, Ryan Bebenzian, is a unbelievable entrepreneur. And with 3 people, he basically got to 50,000,000 run rate revenue in 18 months doing basically through a UGC motion. Like, very mechanically calling out, not micro micro, but, like, small influencers, sending them a flower hat a shower hat. And he got 2020,000 pieces of UGC made last year. Unbelievable. So I wanted to emulate that, and, I wanted to also be very you know, with the free offer, I’m like, oh, it’s like community is important part of, like, a freemium player or whatever. So I wanted to get a community space and, like, have a bunch of content going in there.

Adam Robinson [00:36:10]:
And, you know, like, right now, with this new tool, we we we’re not even trying in, like, you know, 50 to 200 people sign up every day for the free version. Like, it’s it’s crazy, you know. And it’s just I’m posting on LinkedIn the same as I always would, but, like, all of a sudden, we have a place to send them and, like, you know with with with no additional effort. We’re actually trying to not get people to sign up. It’s just happening. Right? So top of funnel is, like, incredible. And I’m talking to this guy, and I’m telling him all this stuff. And I’m like, well, what do you think about this community? And he’s like, well, how do you think? He’s like, a, these communities that are built around ideas are there’s competition out there, and the people you’re competing with do this full time.

Adam Robinson [00:36:51]:
So, like, I don’t like that part of it. And he’s like, if it’s content led, how do you envision people will engage with it? I’m like, I bet I think they’ll just show up and binge it and then kinda leave. He’s like, well, that doesn’t sound like it’s killer. Right? He’s like, your LinkedIn is, like, better than anybody’s right now, and it’s building community in the comments. He’s like, I would do that. And then he’s like, they’ve started on this UGC motion. They call it Clay Creators. He’s like, dude, like, don’t do that yet.

Adam Robinson [00:37:25]:
He’s like, you definitely don’t have a problem acquiring people. He’s like, just spend all your time figuring out free to paid conversion. Like, pick out this, like, top slice of your users. You know, tell them the features you’re gonna deliver in 2 weeks and get them to agree to pay for it. When they start paying, check-in a month later and make sure they’re happy. Spend all your time doing that. And then once you feel very comfortable that you understand your free to paid motion, then start doing this UGC stuff. You got a tiny team.

Adam Robinson [00:37:55]:
Like, I would only be focusing on this 2 killer because, like, the product is killer. Right? It’s just we have no idea what our business model is yet. So I’m talking to Alec about it, and he’s like, well, that’s a great post. It’s like, I had a 5 minute converse last last you know, I just got off the phone or whatever. It’s like I had a 5 minute conversation that completely changed the trajectory of my next 6 months. Right? Like, that’s a great hook coming from me, right, who who posts this work in public stuff. So that’s an example of what we talk about in the idea generation. It’s like, what’s happened during the week that can, like, make its way into a post.

Adam Robinson [00:38:29]:
You know? Then there’s a 30 minute call later, and this is on Monday. There’s a 30 minute call later in the day on Monday that’s all about outreach in LinkedIn. So, like, it’s not cold outreach, but it’s, like, taking the connection like, like, if you put in a big LinkedIn post that gets thousands of likes, you’ll get 200 people who inbound connects to you. So sifting through inbound connections for ideal customer profile, and we’re still trying to put Santosh and Pete on the phone with with everybody. So, basically, like, talking about how that machine is working and any changes in that machine is, like, another 30 minutes. Then I write 3 to 4 posts a week. In the worst case scenario, the first one takes, like, an hour, and it’s brutal. And, like, I can bang the next 2 out in another hour.

Adam Robinson [00:39:24]:
In the best case scenario, it’s, like, you know, an an hour 15, an hour and a half for all for all 3 to 4. And then Alec edits those and posts them. He’s got a schedule you know, he’s got a plan a content calendar, basically. And then we make videos for half of them, and, like, you know, Christy will, like who’s the video head of video, she’ll, like, put time in my calendar to, like, record. In a half hour, we can basically do the the video bits for for both of them. So and then, by the way, that’s just my, I would call it, my outbound content engine. I’m also trying to get on as many podcasts as humanly possible because now I have enough LinkedIn clout while people actually want me, which is great. It’s weird.

Adam Robinson [00:40:13]:
It’s like you get to a certain point. Like, somebody, Eminem or something said this. He’s like he’s like, all of a sudden, I’m rich, and I’m getting free clothes. You know? Like, it’s kinda like that. It’s like once it’s already working for you, then, like, you can do stuff like that. It’s like, well, I wanna get on all the sales and marketing podcasts, and people actually wanna have you on. So I think there’s the outbound content engine for me is LinkedIn and this video stuff, but then I also wanna get in front of everybody else’s audiences. And this is the most important thing that I’m doing because it is an unbelievable amount of effort, but now that it’s gotten to this point and, by the way, we keep getting better at it.

Adam Robinson [00:40:52]:
It is literally the most for for this market we’re going after, it is the most efficient way to spread awareness and acquire these free users that could ever exist.

Maciej Nowak [00:41:04]:
Yeah. Ever. You’re like learning you’re you’re also like a learning machine. Right? Because you started, what, 12 months ago, and now, you have this amount of followers. But also, you know, I think the key is also in the content. You mentioned that during this conversation that we

Adam Robinson [00:41:20]:
Well, that’s all you know, that’s a whole thing. Right? Because, like, that’s what gets distribution. It’s like, you gotta feed you gotta feed the machine what it wants. You know?

Maciej Nowak [00:41:31]:
And people want you I’m sorry for interrupting, but people want you because of that content. Right? What you are saying now is also based, you know, that building public story, also is, like, for me, super interesting. Also for another for one more reason, it is, I think, like, 3rd time this week, I was hit with post on LinkedIn. You know, the a couple of times, you know, because no one is posting on LinkedIn, and we we are as a student studio, we are also in b to b space building websites for tech companies, but I’m dragging my feet to do this. And, you know, I had, I had 2 great posts that was that were saying, you have to do this, right, to have that, minimum recognition. Right? And I I just hate to do this. Yeah. And you are the my first, like, you know, input that is saying the same thing.

Maciej Nowak [00:42:27]:
Right? So I’m just, you know, I there’s no my my my team members will laugh at me laugh laugh at me that, you know, Maciej, you can’t escape now.

Adam Robinson [00:42:36]:
You have to do this. Yeah. I mean can

Maciej Nowak [00:42:40]:
we say this? And one more thing. I we we were talking, like, 2, 3 year 3 three three and a half years ago with a with a, with a business consultant, Greg Albert. Hi, Greg. Out there. And and he was saying that 3 years ago, guys, you have to start building your personal brands on LinkedIn, start posting, stuff. You you know stuff other people don’t, and you have to do this. Now with this podcast, I have a like, for a year about about a year now. I’m not doing anything on LinkedIn.

Maciej Nowak [00:43:16]:
And, you know, this isn’t like this is I’m I’m I don’t know if it is final call for me to start doing something about this. So I no.

Adam Robinson [00:43:25]:
A, you can get somebody to write for you in the beginning. And then if you give it 90 days or something and you just start, like, this is fucking useless, then you just stop. Right? Like, the other extreme is what happened to me. You’re like, I see the potential in this, but I’m going about it in the wrong way. Let me figure out how to do this in a way where it will be incredible. Right? But, like, I wanna reiterate. You know, I think entrepreneurs can be obsessive by nature. Like, this was this was what I was trying to figure out last year.

Adam Robinson [00:44:03]:
Right? Like, it like, so much of my energy was going towards trying to crack this. And our go to market strategy for this b to b product is a result of cracking it. Like, so the the nature of the product on the ecom side, which we can talk about very soon, it it’s just it’s a high churn product to a high churn buyer persona. It’s like when when you’re selling a software as a service that effectively sells leads, that is known as infamously the highest churn product. We have competitors now we did a year ago, so, like, they’re taking some people when when their contracts run out. And, there’s this other issue where Shopify’s SMB. So, like, small business is higher churn, the mid market, like, whatever. So initially, I was like, I’m gonna try to start the b to b product with a lower churn buyer persona.

Adam Robinson [00:44:56]:
I’m gonna start in lower mid market. And the only reason I’m gonna be able to do that is because I have this great LinkedIn brand with these people. Because, like, when you start a startup, typically, you have to start at the bottom because you have no fucking brand. And then, like, you fight your way up, get bigger and bigger deals because that’s how SaaS works. The megaphone was so powerful that I was like, man, I just need something for free to give to people. You know? And, like, if we can make it truly self serve, we could probably convert an unbelievably small percentage of these people to $500 a month, and it would still be a great business. So it’s interesting how, you know, the two things are kind of, influencing each other. Right? Like, the fact that we had a b to b product that we were messing around with is the reason that I started writing to revenue leaders on LinkedIn.

Adam Robinson [00:45:52]:
Then that crushed so hard that it sort of defined what the go to market motion was. You know? I I would have definitely done it the other way had I not had this unbelievable megaphone. Right? Like, just because you make money faster and, like, whatever. But, like, you know, freemium is like the global domination thing. So so, anyway, I I don’t know what my point was there, but, there were several points. Like, number 1, like, I just became crazy obsessed with figuring it out. And then number 2, you know, we we we are all part of these very connected systems. You know, like, every business is very different.

Adam Robinson [00:46:37]:
What’s gonna work for me isn’t gonna work for you. And my journey the last year has been one of these things, you know, it’s it’s like it’s all influencing everything else. And right now, it’s so powerful that it’s all one thing is helping the other thing. You know?

Maciej Nowak [00:46:56]:
Yeah. And and and since this is taking so much of your time, how are you building those businesses? You know, you you you have a couple of cofounders. You have but you’re not a big you’re you’re not a big organization. Right?

Adam Robinson [00:47:10]:
You’re a company? So I have, like, I started get emails, which is now retention.com. That’s what it was called at first with 6 people. 5 of them still work here, which is crazy. That team one one of the cofounders of that is her name is Diana Ross. She now is, like, managing that ecom business full that she is doing the job that I was doing before. She effectively is is running that company. That’s not her

Maciej Nowak [00:47:44]:
title. CEO of that segment.

Adam Robinson [00:47:46]:
Yeah. Her title is CRO, but she is the c o CEO of that business. Major stuff, she still asked me about, you know, big initiatives. Like, we’re we’re trying to install this, like, process framework called Eos right now. So, like, that was my idea. You know? But, like, the day to day, I’m not involved in that at all anymore. But there’s 55 people who work on it full time.

Maciej Nowak [00:48:10]:
Oh.

Adam Robinson [00:48:10]:
Yeah. 22 in ARR, 55 people. It’s, like, 30% total margin business. It’s great. It’s it’s we’ll see how much it grows this year. That’s the only only issue. Then I have a team of 5 full time that’s working on this new business. Me, this guy Santosh, who’s my COO, who’s like is this big b to b data guy who built ZoomInfo and Apollo and stuff.

Adam Robinson [00:48:34]:
Tate, our CTO, stuff like this, like building a v one, no one is faster or better in the world than him. And we have a guy who’s, like, basically doing support with the goal of creating self serve documentation to solve every problem. And then we have a guy who’s doing kind of chatbot sales and marketing and support layer on top of all of that. So those are the 5. And I’m I think we I think we can get away with that 5 for, like, a really long time. Like, I I had the original 6. We had we had to let one of the guys go, but we replaced him. So I had we were 6 people at Get Emails until until last until September of 22.

Adam Robinson [00:49:22]:
Twelve million ARR. So I think we can get my goal is to get r b two b way farther with this. Maybe we need to hire somebody to, like if we really get it into the UGC, maybe we need to, like, hire somebody to, like, manage influencers and, like, try to get our users posting about it and, like, all that shit. But, other than that, I don’t know I don’t know why we would need any other people. So Mhmm. Yeah. This is this

Maciej Nowak [00:49:48]:
is this is amazing because I I was expecting even less people, you know, like, having kind of rough look on the, you know, on LinkedIn. And I was, like, 30 people. But but 55 is still still small number for organizations organization like yours. And I have a question about those chatbots because for sales, there is, like, I from what I observe from the outskirts or from the, let’s say, sidelines of AI growing as a as a as as a whole, like, technology and industry is number 1 chatbot. Then for sales, like, outreach and stuff, and content obviously is, you know, the biggest part. How are you doing this chatbot chatbot thing for that for that tool?

Adam Robinson [00:50:35]:
So so this is an interesting conversation in itself. I don’t use chat gpt at all in my in the content that I create, and here’s my view about it. I think, so I’m gonna rip off something. I I listen to this podcast with with this guy, Rick Rubin, who’s this famous music producer. He wrote a book called The Creative Act. You should check it out if you haven’t read it. So good. I think this content is art, personally.

Adam Robinson [00:51:08]:
It’s like, this is the art that I’m putting out in the world. It happens to also be marketing. I agree. I agree. But, like, this is creative work. It’s art. It’s you’re having to satisfy a lot of the things that an artist would have to satisfy when you’re making it. So, Rick Rubin, when he was interviewing this guy, I forget who it was, he’s like, I believe that the most inter he’s like, the most interesting thing about art to me is the perspective of the artist.

Adam Robinson [00:51:35]:
And he’s like, it’s not clear to me that AI has perspective. So I think that people see the tool and they see what it does, and they’re like, this is written elegantly. It’s written beautifully. It maybe even is written how I would write it. Right? But what it’s missing is and I think the reason that my post resonates so much is, like, well, this is my experience. You know? And I think you could probably prompt it, but it’s still I guess what I’m saying is, like, I don’t think that AI has nailed may never maybe I’ll take it back, but, like, I’m trying to do things that are, like, maximizing authenticity in this world where so much more chat GPT created content will be put out there over every channel, not just the channel that I’m on. Right? Everybody’s using it for blog posts. I find this stuff hard to read.

Adam Robinson [00:52:38]:
I mean, I can tell I I think that

Maciej Nowak [00:52:39]:
I can

Adam Robinson [00:52:40]:
tell when people, like, comment using the AI magic wand on my stuff, and I write AI question mark back because I’m like, but it’s just something about there’s just something about and and I’m sure I get fooled, you know, half the time, 3 quarters of the time, whatever. But, like, and I have a buddy named Chase Diamond who’s kind of more of a content factory. Like, he says, I’m trying to be known well, whereas he’s trying to be well known, if that makes sense. He’s bigger on Twitter, and, like, he he he can put tweets out that are basically ChatGPT generated. But it’s stuff like, you know, what are the 5 important things of the subject line of a read of an email. Right? That’s not the kind of post I’m putting out. I’m putting out, like Yeah. Exactly.

Adam Robinson [00:53:23]:
What I what I talked about you earlier is, like, I talked to this guy who was running a PLG company, and it totally changed my priorities. Right? I don’t know how you’re gonna get that out of an AI.

Maciej Nowak [00:53:33]:
You won. You won.

Adam Robinson [00:53:34]:
Yeah. Exactly. So, like so so so my view is I’m trying to maximize authenticity in this content creation thing at the top of the funnel and not have AI have anything to do with it. You know?

Maciej Nowak [00:53:47]:
I I I get it, but you also, you also escaped a little bit that question about chatbot for the for the product.

Adam Robinson [00:53:53]:
No. No. I’m getting I’m getting there.

Maciej Nowak [00:53:54]:
Okay.

Adam Robinson [00:53:55]:
Alright. I’m trying to have the sales customer support and and and, customer success or whatever you wanna call it, be entirely chatbot AI. Right? And so so, like and that’s just like a governing principle we’re striving for. You know? You could have a lot of salespeople working on this, surely. You know, put them on calls a bunch. We’re just gonna try to use chatbots instead of people to solve all those questions and not have a fallback layer where it goes to human. Week 1, so, like, I mean, we’re we’re not even 2 weeks into this. Week 1, we had 1200 support requests.

Adam Robinson [00:54:38]:
95.5 percent were resolved self serve entirely.

Maciej Nowak [00:54:41]:
But but based on that, chatbot?

Adam Robinson [00:54:45]:
Yes.

Maciej Nowak [00:54:47]:
Great.

Adam Robinson [00:54:48]:
2 a half percent 2 a half percent went immediately to a human, and 2 a half percent went to a human eventually.

Maciej Nowak [00:54:55]:
2nd we got ourselves.

Adam Robinson [00:54:56]:
So, like, we wanna just take that 5% that’s left and make it, like, as close to 0 as possible, and then just tell the story of the reason chatbot. So my my my the the whole, long drawn out speech I gave there was, like, the most obvious use case of this chat gpt is just to write long form text. The problem is that is what everyone’s using it for, so I think it’s, like, creating, like, a dilution in that. Right? Like, it’s and it’s making the actual thought leadership that’s max authentic resonate even more. So, like, my whole point is, like, I think that the best use of this is actually the customer support use case and maybe, like, some sales or something. You know?

Maciej Nowak [00:55:41]:
And I was referring to that because those are 3 3 main, like, paths the the industry is, you know, finding immediate applications. But, also, you know, CEO of Klarna also recently, like, a week ago, 2 weeks ago, posted that amazing, you know, summary of their investment into exactly the same tool chatbots. And, funnily enough, I had one more conversation a week ago with a a with a with a with a guy, who hates you know, it it it it’s a prospective client, but part of the discussion was that he hates FAQ sections. There are no interesting questions there, and he has his business relies also on huge documents. Like, there are 80 100 pages, you know, legal text documents. No one can read it. Clients certainly not. His salespeople, they’re struggling.

Maciej Nowak [00:56:36]:
So, you know, you you you can create a tool that would reply, to clients’ questions based on that huge unreadable data, like, in knowledge base.

Adam Robinson [00:56:46]:
I love that use case.

Maciej Nowak [00:56:47]:
Perfect application.

Adam Robinson [00:56:48]:
Yep. I love that use case. I think that a lot of people are trying to use it to make organic thought leadership con or organic social media thought leadership content, and I don’t like that use case. You know? I I just don’t think it makes good stuff for that. You know?

Maciej Nowak [00:57:06]:
And do do you have a word that filter that, you know, tells every image which was, you know, AI generated and also, you know, most of the copy, like, text that is, like, screaming this was written in in AI.

Adam Robinson [00:57:20]:
Do I have in my mind or like Yeah.

Maciej Nowak [00:57:23]:
Yeah. In in your mind, like, you you look at it and you immediately know this is no AI.

Adam Robinson [00:57:28]:
So so I I try to answer most of the comments that people leave on my posts, and that’s where I feel like I could see it the most. You know? It’s

Maciej Nowak [00:57:39]:
just Yeah. This is easier.

Adam Robinson [00:57:40]:
It’s like because it’s just like a recap of the post ish. It’s written perfectly. And it’s like, why would someone ever make a comment that just recaps my post and tells me good job? You know what I mean? Like, that’s not a, you know, and it’s weird how it it annoys you. It’s like it, like, I feel like I wasted my time re it’s like here’s the feeling that I get. If you weren’t willing to take the time to write me a genuine comment, it wasn’t worth my time reading it. So kinda like, fuck you. You know? Yeah.

Maciej Nowak [00:58:17]:
Yeah. And Peter Levins is also, was also he’s, like, famous building public, you know, person on Twitter, digital nomadism and stuff. And he was so furious about those AI generated replies to his post that he was, like, screenshotting them and asking, and and and so on because this is so ubiquitous on his, on his profile.

Adam Robinson [00:58:43]:
Yeah. I mean, I get it. It’s like, I’m taking the time. Can you just please, like you know? But then again, it’s like people want the maximum return for the least amount of effort. So, like, I’m on people’s list now to go comment on posts because I have 70,000 followers and good engagement. So people will just do that. It’s like, oh, Adam Robinson. Click.

Adam Robinson [00:59:05]:
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. You know?

Maciej Nowak [00:59:08]:
Exactly. I get it. Alright. So I I I think we know. We we spent an hour discussing LinkedIn strategy, which was totally not planned, but I I’m hooked. I’m hooked. And, you know, I have to have a very honest discussion about this with my team.

Adam Robinson [00:59:23]:
Yeah. But what I would say is the the place to start is getting a ghostwriter and just seeing if you even see anything come back. I think you probably will. You know? But Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Now

Maciej Nowak [00:59:34]:
do do we dive into a cart abandonment recovery for, like, 10, 15 minutes? It it was meant to be a deep dive, whereas it was deep dive into LinkedIn strategy.

Adam Robinson [00:59:45]:
Well, I think most people are more intrigued by you know, because people are doing it in the ecom side too. Not not necessarily LinkedIn, but, like, I mean, the dude wipes guy is on on LinkedIn, but, you know, the founder brand thing works. So it’s just novel. Anyway, let’s talk about card abandonment. What specifically do you wanna talk about about card abandonment?

Maciej Nowak [01:00:06]:
I was thinking, like, let’s start very shallow and then dig a little bit deeper. So, you know, for those who don’t know even don’t even know what’s cart abandonment, recovery, you know, can we start with this, you know, why this is important? And then, you know, how it is done and for who it makes sense and for who doesn’t.

Adam Robinson [01:00:26]:
Yep. Got it. So we’re mainly talking about ecommerce stores, at least the world that I have come from, that are like the largest consumers of this card abandonment, sort of technology, if you wanna call it that. And the core idea is this, the hottest lead in the world to you as an ecom store owner is somebody who has put something in their cart, and then, like, their 2 year old has come over and required their attention, and they shut their laptop, and they leave, and they go play with their 2 year old.

Maciej Nowak [01:01:03]:
How long do I know it?

Adam Robinson [01:01:04]:
Yeah. And then, like, it has slipped your mind that you ever put this thing in the card. Right? The problem is if you do not reach out to that person and contact them again, the odds that they will convert on that card are surprisingly low. If you do reach out to them over email, SMS, whatever channel is available to you, the odds that they will convert on that cart are much higher. And everyone sees this everywhere. If you’re new to realizing that this idea is a thing, Amazon immediately comes to people’s minds. It’s like, oh, yeah. Like, when I put stuff in an Amazon cart and I don’t buy it, Amazon emails me and tries to get me to buy it again.

Adam Robinson [01:01:56]:
So that that, it’s called an abandoned cart or an add to cart flow or something like that. And a flow is Klaviyo parlance for, a series of emails that is triggered by some action. And in this case, that action would be adding something to the card. So I think that sums up the problem, right, in in the solution, quite frankly. So it’s like and the interesting thing you know, there’s probably a lot of Klaviyo users listening to this. The interesting thing about Klaviyo is that and this is really annoying. When you create a Klaviyo account, they require that you set up something they call an abandoned cart flow. But what that really is is an abandoned checkout.

Adam Robinson [01:02:52]:
So the flow they require you to set up does not get triggered until you actually get past the cart page to the checkout page and leave in the middle of that process. So Why is that? I don’t know. In the Okay. Why don’t they call it abandon checkout? Like, that would make everyone’s lives so much easier because, like, we have to sit there and explain to people. Well, they’re like, well, I have an abandoned cart. It’s like, well, you don’t. You have an abandoned checkout flow, and, like, you need Klaviyo calls what we are talking about add to cart. It’s triggered by an add to cart event.

Adam Robinson [01:03:27]:
That’s why they call it that. So a really good question to ask yourself if you’re using Klaviyo is, have I set up a second have I set up a flow on my own that does this? And if the answer’s no, drop everything. It won’t take you 15 minutes. Set it up. Google it like there are, you know, rivers of ink have been spilled about how to set up an an add to cart flow in Klaviyo. So that would be number 1, lowest hanging fruit, period, exclamation point. It’s the most valuable email you can send. So, yeah, that’s an interesting tidbit about it.

Adam Robinson [01:04:09]:
If you’re new to the game, you might not even be doing this even though you think you are. Pro tip. So what problems can emerge? So so, anyway, we we have a product that basically expands the audience of people that get sent these abandoned carts. Why and how? Well, the fundamental issue is if you own an ecommerce store, these days, people are not logging in to your ecommerce store most of the time, unless you’re Amazon. What are you logged into? Right? You’re not logged in to, like, jimmysocks.com. Right? You’re just not. And the problem is

Maciej Nowak [01:04:55]:
And you don’t buy with creating an account, but rather as a guest most of the time.

Adam Robinson [01:04:59]:
Exactly. And and if you have that, like, the issue there is there’s no way for Klaviyo or Shopify to know who the customer on your site is unless they’re what’s called authenticated or, like, logged in. Right? Or unless, yeah, unless they had been logged in, the first party quickly got laid on them, and and it’s still but but it would show that you’re logged in. So this is the problem that we solve with our identity tech. I explained that we identify anonymous website visitors. Like, you know, email list growth, abandoned cart, audience expansion, these are the 2 things we’re doing more than anything else. 2 2 biggest value props we have. So so, yeah, I mean, that you know, basically, if you’re like, okay.

Adam Robinson [01:05:50]:
I’m I’m down. I set up this add to cart. Like, how do I make it better? There would only how do I make it do more for me? There would be 2 ways. 1 would be you would massage the creative, you know, experiment with their their so you could test this. Generally speaking, I think people try to, like the first email goes out, maybe it doesn’t have a discount coupon, maybe it does. It depends on where you you know, maybe you get away without it on the first one, and then the second one, it’s got, like there’s definitely a a discount rec a a discount coupon best practice at some point in this flow, whether it’s 2 or 3 parts. Like, the last email definitely has it. It’s just a question of whether all of them do or not.

Adam Robinson [01:06:39]:
And that’s, like, the fundamental ingredient of the it’s the thing that can really change the conversion the most. You know? And then it’s this audience expansion stuff. It’s just like you know? But then then the question becomes, okay. With the audience expansion, the the the coupon thing kind of applies to everybody, you know, the discount. With the audience expansion, it’s like, you know, at what point are you is enough flow going through your abandoned cart series to make it worth trying to amplify that with technology. If there’s 0, the answer is don’t waste your time. Right? If it’s $500 a month, the answer is don’t waste your time. Right? I think you need to be recapturing 1,000 of dollars a month through this flow before it even makes sense to start trying to use this identity technology to make it better.

Adam Robinson [01:07:41]:
If you’re because it’s like one of these things. It’s like, if you’re not there yet, like, you have a lot of other things in your business to work on speeding up before before this. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, you know, this was kinda one of the problems with my my content creation effort up until I started talking to b two b. It’s like, man, this is my area of expertise, but there’s just not that much to it. You know what I mean? It’s a pretty simple thing.

Adam Robinson [01:08:14]:
It’s like it’s like a binary, do you have it set up? Yes or no? Then, like, a binary, you know, have you sort of are you using best practices with the copy and everything? Yes or no? And then it’s like, do you have enough flow going through to use identity technology to expand the audience? Yes or no. And then that’s it. And then the the only other thing would be, you know, the the abandoned cart is the most effective of these flows. You should also definitely have abandoned product flows set up in an in an ideal world. So, like, the way I think about email is there’s, like, you’re blasting out newsletters every so often. Right? A much better email is something that is highly targeted and the timing is perfect. And so, like, in an ideal world, but you have to have people on your side to do that. So I think the newsletter pulls people to your site, but then once they get to your site, you wanna have as much of this sort of, like you know, an abandoned product email is, like, someone hit your product page.

Adam Robinson [01:09:21]:
They didn’t put something in their cart. They left. You should send them an email with that product and just remind them they were looking at it. It doesn’t convert as well as the abandoned cart, but it converts 5 times better than any other email you’ll send to somebody just because it’s so so personalized and it’s so timely, you know, and relevant, right, which is, like, the ingredient to good email. So best practices are, like, make sure you have the abandoned checkout, the abandoned cart or add to cart, and the abandoned product setup. Some people even have the abandoned site. Right?

Maciej Nowak [01:09:58]:
Alright. So How do you how do, how do you find that perfect timing?

Adam Robinson [01:10:05]:
Well, I mean, Klaviyo Klaviyo will, like, kinda do that for you. So the way all these flows will set up are set up, they kinda track the user around the site. And then whenever that stops, however far they got, that will determine what gets sent. So it’s like, you know, maybe they wait 15 minutes until they stop getting signals or whatever, and then that triggers the email or something like that. So it it’s not which is which is a good question because when you’re listening to me, you’re like, well, how do if someone’s navigating around my website, wouldn’t they just constantly be getting emails that whole journey? It’s like, no. You get sent Klaviyo has this thing called Smart Send also, where it’s one email per 24 hours. Almost everybody in my experience has that enabled. I think they enable it by default.

Adam Robinson [01:10:54]:
So do not worry about people getting over emailed as a result of you setting up a bunch of email flows. That would be my recommendation. More is better with flows. You wanna be sending out more of these than less. Like, they just converse so well. You know?

Maciej Nowak [01:11:09]:
But there is also probably an inflection point when where, you get fed up with all of their communication.

Adam Robinson [01:11:16]:
No? Well, if you have smart send

Maciej Nowak [01:11:19]:
And and sub and

Adam Robinson [01:11:20]:
what’s more unsubscribe. One email per day these days will not My experience is it doesn’t. It I’ve heard no one say that there’s, like, a a, sort of blowback from over emailing with 1 every 24 hours. Alright.

Maciej Nowak [01:11:40]:
Fair enough.

Adam Robinson [01:11:41]:
Yeah.

Maciej Nowak [01:11:42]:
And, retention.com is exclusively for Shopify. Correct?

Adam Robinson [01:11:48]:
No. So, like, we started with Shopify because, it was just the biggest ecosystem. You know? We are making an effort to move outside of the Shopify ecosystem, but, like, kind of above. So, like, BigCommerce and, like, you know,

Maciej Nowak [01:12:06]:
Salesforce. More more enterprising?

Adam Robinson [01:12:08]:
Yeah. Ish, mid marketing, you know, omnichannel retailers or whatever. We have found that under around 3,000,000 in revenue for the store, technology like ours doesn’t provide enough lift to make it worth Mhmm. The headache of installation and the price, basically.

Maciej Nowak [01:12:28]:
So Alright.

Adam Robinson [01:12:31]:
So, yeah, we’re trying to segment, which which is another thing that makes it challenging from a lot of perspective. It’s like the the audience is just a very thin slice. So we need to do this highly targeted account based marketing to get people to events where we can meet them, and then, you know, that’s that’s basically the sales motion.

Maciej Nowak [01:12:50]:
Yeah. You opened another, let’s say, about the events I read on your feed. By the way, do we have 2 more minutes?

Adam Robinson [01:13:00]:
Yep. I

Maciej Nowak [01:13:01]:
do. Yeah. So, would you would you tell us a little bit more about, you know, participation in all of those trade shows, you know, in last year, versus, you know, doing this on an exclusive, like, approach. Yeah. I love the satellite, event idea because it’s like, you know, it’s a honeypot. The the big trade shows is the honeypot, and I have a thing a lot of companies are doing those satellites events, like breakfast for for clients. But those Lamborghinis, you know, events, I I have never heard about, you know, this kind like, this level of, you know, having fun with your potential clients. You know?

Adam Robinson [01:13:43]:
That that

Maciej Nowak [01:13:44]:
is, like, one person. Right?

Adam Robinson [01:13:45]:
Readily available in Vegas. So if you’re it’s not even that expensive. So, yeah, it’s pretty easy to to execute there. I think it’d be hard to do anywhere else, but they just have that as, like, a thing. It’s like a prepackaged experience, and you just

Maciej Nowak [01:13:59]:
kinda put

Adam Robinson [01:14:00]:
them in. Yeah. Yeah. Alright.

Maciej Nowak [01:14:03]:
Alright. Adam, thank you very much. It was I don’t know. It was amazing. I’m I’m blown away about all of the stuff that I have heard. Oh, wow. And the yeah. This is this was great.

Maciej Nowak [01:14:16]:
This was great. Thank you very much, and good luck, with growing, with growing those comp the company and the second product. And and yeah.

Adam Robinson [01:14:26]:
Thanks, man. Thanks for having me on.

Lector [01:14:28]:

If you like what you’ve just heard, don’t forget to subscribe for more episodes. On the other hand, if you’ve got a question we haven’t answered yet, feel free to reach out to us directly. Just go to osomstudio.com/contact. Thanks for listening. And see you in the next episode of the Osom to Know podcast.