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Brain Driven Brands
Surviving Q4 Burnout: The Real Black Friday Ad Strategy No One Talks About
00:31:57
This episode of Brain Driven Brands is a survival guide for founders, media buyers, and creative teams heading into the chaos of Q4. Sarah sits down with Joanna Wallace (VP of Paid Creative @ Bird Dog, formerly HexClad) to pull back the curtain on...
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- [00:00]
A
Joanna Wallace, everybody. Is this the beginning?
- [00:04]
B
Are we. Are we starting finally at the beginning?
- [00:06]
A
Guys, you don't even know. We came into this so professional. We, Joanna and I are professionals, and we prepped hard for this.
- [00:14]
B
It's fun to do podcasts on the road when you're in a hotel room.
- [00:17]
A
Yes, we've been on this podcast a couple few times. And you have some very great experience with leading teams, which I think is fantastic because I'm kind of in this weird crack in the industry where I work with a lot of teams, but I also work with a lot of individuals. So I always love having you on the show because we get to deep dive, talk about, like, the human side of D2C, not just the AD side of D2C, which, don't get me wrong, I love ads, but the people who make the ads are kind of important. So in your experience, what was the biggest team size you ever led? Let's talk about that first. Like, how many people?
- [00:51]
B
That's a complicated question because of, like, the volume of, like, editors and designers who are, like, freelance. That's really tricky. Um, I would say probably like, three strategists and then like, a mini army of international editors and designers.
- [01:04]
A
Yeah, you did. You really had people, like, all over the world that were kind of like direct reports to you. Okay, so let estimate like, 10, 15 somewhere in there, which is a decent team size. Like, that's big.
- [01:14]
B
Yeah, let's. Let's say that I think between like, my agency Time and. And Hex that. Yeah, it's also amorphous.
- [01:21]
A
I know people go in, people come out like, you know, this is what it is. Now, the only reason I ask how many is because some of the people that follow, like, brain driven brands very specifically are people who are solo founders. So they're doing all their ads themselves. And then we have a huge group of people who are like, I have a team of two. It's just me. And, like.
- [01:39]
B
And I've. And I've done that too. And that's kind of my specialty is like, how the hell do you make something out of nothing?
- [01:45]
A
Oh, my gosh. Yes. Especially when there's only two people. And thank God you have two brains, because it is helpful to have another person in the room. But then there's only two of you, and it's like, cool. Well, we're gonna see what we can make between the two of us. It's literally like running, like, a Michelin star restaurant with, like, a chef and a sous chef.
- [02:01]
B
I mean, it's like, crack first. Because who.
- [02:04]
A
Yes.
- [02:04]
B
Like, first gets the time off 100.
- [02:07]
A
Who's gonna go down in flames first? Let's just talk about that. Yeah. Okay. So for big teams, small teams, one of the things that I noticed that's very consistent is we. We start to feel apathy, almost like indifference to our ads. Right at about September, I've noticed it. It, like, starts early September, and then as we get into October, we start to just get this, like, I don't want to do this. It's almost like, resistance towards it, which. And I've talked to tons and tons of teams because, like I said, I'm a consultant, so I'm in, like, weird spots in the industry. But it doesn't matter how big you are. Big, small. You could have a team of 15 managing all of your ads. You could have a team of two. Everybody kind of gets this same sense of just like, I can't do anymore.
- [02:48]
B
Yeah.
- [02:48]
A
Like, I've been so creative for so long. The entire year I've been creative, and now you're asking me to ramp it up by 10. Yeah, it's intense, and I don't think people quite know how to handle it. So in your experience, what's been the most helpful for managing, like, team burnout?
- [03:05]
B
Okay, so the first thing is anyone who's ever worked with or for me, who watches this is going to be like, joe, you do not have this figured out. And I be the second person to tell you, I don't have this figured out.
- [03:15]
A
However we got thoughts about it, we're forgetting we're making.
- [03:18]
B
Every single year we are making progress. And I think it's really a team effort to keep each other healthy. Because I think when you're on these small teams, if they're a good team, these are overachievers. These are people who. Especially when you're in that, like, foxhole together. And you. A lot of people even, like, stay at jobs they hate simply because their partner or their. Their colleague, they don't want to abandon them. So get this really tight bond of, like, not letting the other person down.
- [03:48]
A
Yeah, I would agree with that.
- [03:50]
B
Yeah. And so I think that that goes both ways. Of you have to be like, it's okay. You can let me down. You know, you have to give permission to each other to take time for yourself. So the way I've kind of got the system I've kind of gotten to is treating the entire year like preparation for Q4, which is, like, such a bummer. Um, but it's reality, though, that's the reality of it.
- [04:13]
A
Yeah.
- [04:13]
B
And every single quarter I essentially demand that my team take some time off. So like even if that's like a four day weekend, like I don't care if you sit on your ass and watch Hunting wives, which you should. But like anything.
- [04:27]
A
Just go watch the tv. Yeah.
- [04:28]
B
Just stare at the wall. Like don't, please just don't be here for a minute. And like go recharge, however, disassociate, go on vacation. Whatever you need to do.
- [04:36]
A
Yeah.
- [04:37]
B
So you have to just, you have to force these people to take time off. If you don't have a staff like that, like, that's probably, that's not the problem. And you need to like stop them from taking so much time off. But when I'm in charge of hiring, those are the people who I'm surrounding myself with. Yeah. Who I am. And I'm not going to partner with somebody who doesn't have that same team mentality. So anyway, making sure everybody is taking breaks throughout the year. Mandatory breaks the next long if you.
- [05:02]
A
Can, long term breaks. I will say caveat to that. Like, like a day break is helpful. It's not going to reset though. You got to get your team at least two to three days of just complete time off. If not longer if you can handle it. I've noticed that sweet spot for Sarah at least is four days.
- [05:17]
B
If I can get three days to unclench.
- [05:19]
A
Yes, exactly. That's what I'm saying. And the weekend is not enough, guys. Because are a real thing. Really. I only get Saturday because then Sunday comes around and I'm prepping for the next week. So I'm already in my emails, I'm already back to it and like whatever. So weekends are not enough. If you can get your team three to four days.
- [05:35]
B
Like this is minimum. Let me, let me preface this. This is like on top of this, please take vacation. But like at the very least I need you to take an excessively long weekend to like the other thing that's really important is August, September, y' all gotta go on vacation. Like.
- [05:50]
A
Yes. Get out. Get up. Get up.
- [05:52]
B
Everybody needs to figure out a schedule so that people can go on at least a week vacation in preparation for this big.
- [05:59]
A
Yes. Because it's going to be big. Yeah.
- [06:02]
B
And I think like a big and so for my teams I'm sort of like, please, we don't take vacation during Q4.
- [06:08]
A
Let's pause for just a minute. I've got myself googling better ways to scale ads outside of meta more and More recently, because let's be real, if your business only lives on Meta or Google, you're basically just renting customers instead of owning them. When all of your ad dollars flow through the same two platforms, you're kind of just stuck, right? It's a mental trap of like a little bit of learned helplessness. Costs are going to rise, controls are going to vanish, and you're going to start to believe that there's no other way. Kind of feels like you're just pressing buttons in a machine that doesn't care if you win or lose. This is where Other side comes in. They have completely rebuilt programmatic advertising from the ground up. And this is the reason why we've partnered with them. Instead of being kind of chained to one platform, you get access to connected tv, display, native audio, mobile apps. And unlike kind of those clunky old programmatic agencies, Otherside uses their own optimization algorithm. You can kind of think of this as kind of like a bias free decision engine that adapts in real time across every single channel. Otherside builds those pathways by hitting your customer on Netflix, Candy Crush, then Spotify. So the message kind of just feels familiar and not forced. You get unified tracking on this, so no more attribution black holes. Other side is going to give you transparent performance reports so you can finally get like cognitive clarity right on what's actually driving sales. They are already running profitable programmatic campaigns for brands across dtc, Health, Wellness, Legion, all over the place. The only question is it if you'll work with them. It's when. And you're going to regret waiting. So go do it today. Here's kind of the TLDR on this. They back it all with a money back guarantee, which I really appreciate. If they don't deliver on the results you're hoping for, then they're going to refund your retainer, which in today's day and age I really, really appreciate. So if you are ready to kind of just stop renting your growth and actually start owning your scaling strategy, head over to Join the Other side. Com. That's Join the Other side. Com. They are programmatic and they're rebuilt to perform. So go check them out today. And now back to the show.
- [07:59]
B
You can take a day off, you know what I'm saying? Like, you have a wedding, you have life, whatever. But like nobody is taking more than a few days off because the team suffers. The team then burns out faster because one person went and and had a life. And again, your life is more important than your job. Please don't miss life moments. But like, this is not the time to go to Cancun for funsies on a percent.
- [08:20]
A
Yes. You guys got prepped for when your teams go out. And I will add on to this that I saw a post. I can't remember who it was by. It was somebody at like big top of the brand. She was talking about the fact that like somebody was complaining that she put in kind of restrictions on you guys. Can't take long term vacation, meaning over these four days. Can't take long term vacation inside these this time period, which is like October to the end of November. And that her team was like cranky about it. And I was like, guys, this is the industry. This is what it is.
- [08:48]
B
It's. It's not even about revenue. It's not about keeping your job. It's nothing like that. It is first and foremost the team.
- [08:54]
A
Yeah.
- [08:55]
B
And I really, really firmly believe that it's important to take care of yourself because if one of you goes down. Yes. The rest of you are going to just probably be like bailing out the ship.
- [09:05]
A
And it's impossible to get it to. To actually go in a smooth manner without everybody, like all hands on deck type of thing. Yeah.
- [09:14]
B
Yeah. And the other thing is you gotta start preparing for Q4 early so that you're pacing yourself. So like, if you're cramming in all of your Q4 shoots in October, that sucks. You really need to start parceling it out in September.
- [09:25]
A
Yes. Yep.
- [09:26]
B
Start thinking about it in August. You don't necessarily need to take action in terms of productions until like September, early October. But like when I see teams start to think about Black Friday like two weeks before, like I'm having an aneurysm for that. I think the biggest thing about Q4 and you didn't ask this question, but like you can insert the question later and then we'll just like re edit. So I think the biggest thing is understanding that like, like I come from team sports. If you can't tell. So like it. Thanksgiving is like halftime, you know, and that is when the coach comes in and needs to give a pep talk whether you're winning or whether you're losing at halftime. You know, it's like when you. It's like when you go to lunch and you come back from lunch at work and you're slog. Like you're just like digesting and like not mentally all there. Like that's kind of. By the time you get to Thanksgiving, everybody has just eaten like a bun. Literally eating a bunch Of Turkey.
- [10:16]
A
And they're so tired.
- [10:17]
B
Yes.
- [10:18]
A
Yep.
- [10:18]
B
You need to not only as their manager, come in there and tell them how much you. That you appreciated their work along the way. You should be also. But appreciation and recognition and specifically calling people out for specific achievements, not just like, rah rah, team participation trophy, like, really make. People should have ownership on their team. And then if the thing they have ownership over does well, they need to be recognized for that. So I think it's not even just like, me, the manager, because that's like mom being like, you're so pretty. You're the prettiest one in the class. Everyone's yelling at you like, no, that means nothing. Upper upper management.
- [10:56]
A
Yes.
- [10:57]
B
A lot of people don't. A lot of management and like C Suite don't necessarily understand what the paid media team does and how hard they work during that time. And like, all departments are working their asses off. But if you can get that gratitude, that thank you, that you know you're doing well, let's have that last push from people who do not see your everyday work. That is the most in. That is where you say, you know what? I'm ready to kick ass for this second half. If you don't get that, you don't feel appreciated and you're like, why am I killing myself? Why am I getting sick? Why am I working late? For what? No one's even caring or noticing.
- [11:31]
A
Yes. I don't think people notice this as much. Maybe people think that this is like an anomaly, but it happens at almost every single agency and almost every single brand. As soon as Black Friday's done, employees switch roles. They're like, I'm out. Like, I can't do this anymore. Like, this was an incredibly stressful experience and I can't do it. So they skip to another brand or they skip to another agency, only to have the same experience again the next year. And I'm like, guys, like, we go down. You got to. I know that it's hard, but, like, you gotta slow down long enough to notice what's happening.
- [12:03]
B
Yeah. And I think that's really important is, like, as a manager with Q4, like, I, like, I'll tell my team, like, this is going to be stressful, but we are in this together. But every team, like every manager and every team has different issues during Q4 and different, different process issues or staffing issues that lead to working late or frustrations or, you know, inability to do things as seamlessly as you'd like to. So Q4 gets unnecessarily stressful. So there's always something that's going to make it unnecessarily stressful. If you don't know how to manage your team and to show appreciation and to pace them. They quit in January, and a lot of times that's out of the manager's control. A lot of times.
- [12:46]
A
And before anybody just, like, scrolls away from this podcast, I know we're diving deep into, like, management and, like, a little bit away from ads, but this is critical. Like, this particular piece is going to make or break your Black Friday because there's humans that are developing your ads, whether you're using a lot of AI or not. This is a human based department and everybody in here needs support and it's creative. So, like, I was talking to my.
- [13:08]
B
Worker the other day, and he runs his own, like, remote office management bookkeeping company. And so when he has a lot of work, it's all very concrete. You know, he got through his one client has three credit cards. He needs to log the transactions for the month. He went through. It took him a long time. He. With stress because of a lot of work, but ultimately at the end, he wrapped it up with a nice bow. It's accurate, it's numbers. It's done very different for us.
- [13:36]
A
Yeah.
- [13:36]
B
We can't think, can't turn it off.
- [13:39]
A
Yeah.
- [13:40]
B
But also, first of all, it's hard to think creatively when you're exhausted and you're burnt out. Second. Or you're rushing last minute. And second of all, there's always that doubt because it is not two plus two equals four.
- [13:52]
A
Yeah.
- [13:52]
B
There is no correct answer. It's subjective. And so you're always. Every time you ship out your creative, there's that.
- [13:59]
A
Yep. Like, is it gonna work? Yep. Every time. Every time. Yes. Yeah.
- [14:05]
B
So there's no. Even when you are done with the work, it's just the stress doesn't stop.
- [14:10]
A
Yes. It's so true. Okay, so we've talked a little bit about, like, the burnout, what we're experiencing, a few different ways that we can help people. Obviously, like, just support. Is there anything you've seen that. It was like this team crushed Black Friday, and they came out of it like, in. In just, like, such an amazing way that, like, they were ready to crush next year. Have you seen a team like that? And what they did, specifically our Q4.
- [14:34]
B
Last year for Hexclad wasn't perfect in terms of. I mean, I think the stuff we put out was amazing. And not saying the ads weren't I mean, the ads weren't perfect because we're humans, but you know what I mean, it's nothing to do with the product.
- [14:43]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [14:43]
B
But I will say that my team did say that, like, this is the best Q4 they've had or could expect. I don't know if necessarily like our edit team degree, but I'm talking about, like the two strategists.
- [14:54]
A
Was that an organizational thing?
- [14:56]
B
We were like, hyper organized and we were hyper prepared in advance. And we got thrown a lot of curveballs because there's all these other departments that play a role in your offers and everything. But our team was nimble and prepared. So when you get hit by all these variables, we were like, ready, ready and organized. And we started really early. And so I think that I know that I drive my team too hard in terms of, like, you have four slots for ads, but you have six ideas. And it's so hard to just not do the six. And like, me and my team will do the six. And we, like, hate ourselves. Cause we're like, we're working extra at like, that creative, like, compulsion. Like sometimes you just can't do the four.
- [15:36]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. At least you came into it with that, that mentality. Okay, so organizational wise, let's move into tactic. Like, strategy wise.
- [15:46]
B
Yeah.
- [15:47]
A
When did you start? What did you press? Like, prep first, second, third, fourth, fifth. And like, how close did you get to Black Friday before everything was ready?
- [15:55]
B
So I wanted to start prepping in August last year. Um, and I couldn't because we ended up having this really cool sweepstakes. So, like, everybody. That's right, all of our attention had to go towards the sweepstakes, which was awesome. Um, and so we really got started in September. And I would say the first thing you need to do is really figure out what footage do I need? Because that's going to take the longest to get out, you know, to. The process has to start. Really, really, truly. You have to have kind of either some specific concepts, but really just like, you need a foundational shoot for the holidays.
- [16:30]
A
Okay.
- [16:31]
B
So half of your strategy or whatever percentage of your strategy is going to be scaling what's worked before. You are going to need some new footage. You're probably going to need some, like, wrapping paper and, you know, bundle shots of new bundles, whatever the hell it is, Christmasy feeling. So you're going to need some of that. And you have to do that early, especially if it's like, high production value or you need UGC talent, whatever it is. Start that in September. Okay.
- [16:55]
A
Yep.
- [16:55]
B
You can have stragglers later, but if you don't have that bulk stuff and you. And again, it's like my favorite thing is the foundational shoot. You don't have to have every ad planned, but you need to, you need to set yourself up with a reasonable bank of assets, of static and video assets so that you can in whatever ways start to make sense as the season unfolds.
- [17:16]
A
Yep. A hundred percent. Okay. Okay. So we're starting in September and we're actually sitting down with the team and prepping what kind of video do we need? What kind of like unboxings or wrappings or, you know, black and gold or like what kind of ugc.
- [17:27]
B
Yeah.
- [17:28]
A
So we write down a list. Okay. What happens after that? So that takes you maybe a couple weeks.
- [17:31]
B
Well, the number one thing before that actually is to really get a sense of what is our spend and working with the media buyers, working with your head of growth and figuring out what is the volume of assets we are going to create. And that is going to determine the shoes that we need. So apologies. That's step one is what are the expectations of us in terms of deliverables? Because then you have to get very selective. If you don't have a large amount of money to play with, you have to be hyper, hyper selective and you're not going to need as many assets. So you can take your time a little bit more. If you have a huge volume of assets, though, you got to get started early and you should honestly have stuff, some certain stuff wrapped up weeks in advance. If it doesn't. If there's one variable that's going to change, that should be done early and you should start delivering in waves as it's done. Not everything should be delivered that day before your, your media buyer is going to launch it. Number one, that media buyer cannot launch it all night. You know, let that guy or that.
- [18:23]
A
Girl basically set up campaigns. Yep. Get them scheduled. Yeah.
- [18:27]
B
If you give them 100 ads at once. That's not fair.
- [18:30]
A
Yeah, yeah. Well, and this is the time period where a hundred ads used to be the norm of like, okay, Black Friday. We have crap tons going in now. A hundred ads is the base level because everybody's running volume, which I have my own beef with, as you know. But now we're getting to the point where if we're already at a hundred ads a week or a hundred ads a month, whatever it is, we're going to have to double or triple that, which means now we got 200 ads that we have to load it. That's way too many.
- [18:53]
B
And that's the other thing, man. My order is all wrong. I'm so sorry. So the other thing is once you figure out the deliverables.
- [19:01]
A
Yes.
- [19:01]
B
You need to figure out your staff. And so what I did actually over the summer last year at Hexclad is I started locking in my editors because my staff were my strategist, everybody else, freelancers, and most of them were part time. And so I got contracts going in August saying I am going to lock you in.
- [19:19]
A
You can't just. For Black Friday. Yes.
- [19:22]
B
Yeah. So it's like October through December. You are locked in full time, part time, whatever we have. Yeah, because you don't have editors, you don't have ads.
- [19:31]
A
Yep. Yeah, you gotta have it. You have to have them. And especially if you're. Right now, it's September 22nd, like, you're. It's a little too late. But if you. If you just don't have anybody on board, this week is the week. You got to go find your editor quickly because we got to get this into prep for the. For the full term of October. Now you and your editor are just going to be sitting down deciding how many ads do we need to. What do we want to shoot? Where do we need to get this footage from? Right. Because you got to get that in place quickly. Okay, so.
- [19:56]
B
And I know great editors, so if you need one.
- [19:58]
A
Yeah.
- [19:59]
B
Call me. Please don't find my phone.
- [20:01]
A
Do I just got the hook up. Okay, so we start with budget. We start with understanding spend. Then we move on to specifically getting. Yeah. Staffing. Getting people so that we can. That we can actually use that spend. Then we'll go into trying to decide how much footage do we need? Do we need to source any UGC creators? Who do we need to schedule? Then we'll go on to actually prepping strategy. So there's like four steps before you even get to the Black Friday strategy. And this is why I love that we're doing this now because I'm going to do inside my school group, shout out to tether lab if you guys want to join. Link is below. Anyways, inside school group, I'm doing a Black Friday workshop on Wednesday where we're just going to sit down and talk about like, okay, what are you guys building? What do you need to have in place? Let's make a list. Let's make a plan. So I love that you've been through quite a few of these and you have a system because Oh, I don't think people even realize it's not about just, like, the offer. It's not just about, like, what ads you're going to run. Look at all this prep that you have to do beforehand just to make sure you have enough ads.
- [20:58]
B
Yeah.
- [20:58]
A
To be able to run at this system.
- [21:00]
B
And also my team last year, we all came from agencies, so this was our first in house, Black Friday. And that is a very different beast. And I. Well, actually, no, it was my second because I started November 1st, 1st of 2023, which was a wild ride, I was gonna say. That's a lot. So it was my second. My second with hexclad, but the first that I truly got to organize from the beginning. And that was really the. You know, for agencies, it's different. You have a bunch of different clients. You're not in charge of the same kind of volume usually, and you're not in charge of the main strategy, usually. But we really sat down and we were like, what has always gone wrong everywhere we've ever worked?
- [21:39]
A
Smart.
- [21:40]
B
What didn't we like, what made everything worse for us? Let's plan in advance and not do that.
- [21:45]
A
I love that you guys are using kind of that, like, oh, there's a principle. And it just left me. There's one specific principle that talks about the fact that looks. Look at the things that went wrong, not the things that went right. Because, like, you can look at my whole career.
- [21:57]
B
Yeah, mine too.
- [22:00]
A
Just look at everything that I don't.
- [22:01]
B
Want to do again and then move away from that.
- [22:04]
A
Oh, this is fantastic. Okay, so once you get the strategy, what is it that you guys sat down and, like, looked at strategy wise? Like, how do you build a Black Friday strategy?
- [22:13]
B
Yeah. This talk makes me realize I should have prepared for this. But it's okay. I. I know this stuff. I'm just like, maybe I should have. Maybe that outline of steps would have been in order.
- [22:25]
A
We're working through it. We're working through it.
- [22:26]
B
So you should never, ever, ever, dear God, ever go into any sale, ever, but especially Black Friday, with all new creative. Like, just.
- [22:35]
A
I feel this in my soul.
- [22:37]
B
My soul. You don't use new creative. You have spent all year creating your library and your strategy of what to do this year. So basically everything you've learned from every sale and every Evergreen period throughout this entire year is what is going to determine your strategy. You are not making it up on the spot. Excuse me? You're not making it up on the spots. So, like, for example, every sale that we had at hexclad in 2024. I used that to further our, our knowledge and make sure that we had strategic learnings along the way so that when we got to Q4, we already had very. We had like four or five maybe templates for what really worked during sales. And each sale we would do some tweaking. So it was like this one has a bit more Americana themed because it's July 4th and this one is, you know, prime day. So we, you know, can't say Amazon so we just use their blue. Like whatever it is. Like, you know, each one has its own flavor. And so you can kind of put the flavor of the season on that top performing ad. But it should come from that base of this has worked for us for three sales in a row.
- [23:46]
A
Oh my gosh. I feel this in my soul. Strategy always has to start with what you know works well. And it also has to start with the fact that like, you don't have this kind of time, people. You do not have this kind of time to generate hundreds of new ads over the course of like a month and get them all loaded and prepped. Like it just, oh my God.
- [24:03]
B
Work smarter, work smarter. Somebody said that, like, oh, God, I feel so bad. Who? Oh, God. I think it was Sam was saying how like the best strategist is the lazy strategist because you'd be overthinking it. And like I definitely overthink everything. But there is a space for new creative. But you need to understand that's your riskiest creative. And there is a, there is a. What is it? Column pillar lane. Yep, there's a lane.
- [24:32]
A
We're doing great.
- [24:35]
B
There's a lane for that. But you need to, you need to assume everything that you are doing that's new is going to fail.
- [24:41]
A
Just assume.
- [24:42]
B
And everything else needs to cover its ass. So for example, you know, good old sticky note post it ads. I introduced it, I think Memorial day sale of 2024. And so then we kind of perfected it a little bit. And so by Black Friday and I was like shooting most of these because it's at home and I'm cheap.
- [25:02]
A
Yeah.
- [25:04]
B
So I went out and got like all this different colored wrapping paper. And so instead of my like wood table background, it was different kinds of holiday wrapping paper and holiday visual. So it's the same thing. But now it's this holiday version of it. But you didn't change so much that you're going to lose the, the way it works. Because I already tested it in three sales with three different backgrounds. And I knew I'm safe to change this background.
- [25:29]
A
Yep.
- [25:29]
B
I'm a compulsive planner, which is funny because I'm also late for everything. But like never deliverables, just doctor's appointments. So what's really important to me being the compulsive crazy person that I am, is that especially towards around mid year, I make sure. No, that's a lie. I do it all the time. I make sure that all my UGC people are saying vague sale messages when I'm sending them a brief. I'm getting, you know. Because you don't know what your sale is going to necessarily mean.
- [25:59]
A
Yeah.
- [26:00]
B
But if you have like a general 20% off or general 40% off, like get that because you know it's going to come back around.
- [26:04]
A
I love this evergreen man. Evergreen messaging.
- [26:07]
B
Oh, and I always get that Evergreen sale messaging. And that way when we come back around to Black Friday, if you were a top performer, I don't have to pay you to do new shoes. I don't have to deal with getting pickups. Because even if you didn't say the amount, my graphic will say the amount. It's fine.
- [26:22]
A
Now this comes down to organization, which I love that we called out earlier in. This is just you got to be organized. You have got to get somebody on the team who understands. Okay, we really need to go in and like organize these asset folders so that we know what's in here. What people said inside the video, who was in the video, how long ago they said it like tag people, just tag stuff. That way when you get to this point in Black Friday and you need extra footage, you just like walk in there, grab it.
- [26:44]
B
Yeah. Let me actually preface this by saying that the first step is at some point during the year, within like two months out at least a Black Friday is get your off of Google Drive.
- [26:56]
A
Oh my God.
- [26:57]
B
Yes, pick a platform. Any platform. I'm obviously loyal to recharge. But like yes, pick a freaking platform and get your shit organized. It is the best investment that you can ever make is to have everything easily findable. When you bring on new Freelance editors for Q4, they can find immediately. You don't have to to like onboard them.
- [27:17]
A
This is gonna have to be a two parter. So this week's like get to rest on the six minutes. Well the next part of it is I wanna see your launch strategy. So we might do like this is like Black Friday strategy part one and then we'll do Black Friday strategy with Joanna part two. Cause the next piece of this, which I think we need to really drive into, is when do you launch? What did you prep? Did you. What did you do with the email team? Like, what was their role in this? Like, yeah, there's so many pieces to it, which is the reason why I love talking to you, because you have so many. You have good experience, but you also have, like, a really good way of thinking about this where it's like, guys, fundamentals, like, just get the basics in place. You could always be more creative on top of that. But if you don't have basics, there's no way to be creative because you're just going to be putting out fires for the next six weeks and you don't want that.
- [28:00]
B
Yeah.
- [28:01]
A
You don't want that in your life.
- [28:02]
B
And there is like a big. I feel like there's a big debate of, like, do you do. Maybe there's no debate. I have a debate in my head, like a campaignified sale or whether you kind of your different verticals, like your retention and whatever, are all just doing their own thing based on what they know has worked throughout the year. Yeah, I think it's a really interesting question of what is the value of the consistency of the brand versus pulling yourself further from the data of what you know works. So it's like, if you can campaign, ify what you're doing without getting too far away from what the data said works great. But like, I always get really nervous. Like, I love campaign Ification is beautiful, but like, oh, I work all year and I know what works. And like, do we really need it to be pretty?
- [28:50]
A
Yeah. Well, again, at the end of the day, this comes down to we're going to do the best we can to hit our. Our forecast like metrics. We're trying to hit our numbers as best we can, but at the same time, we're human, guys. Like, the people that work inside this industry are human. We're doing the best we can and we'll. Yeah, it is what it is.
- [29:10]
B
If you want to make a major change, if you're like, this is when we're going to campaignify, this is when we're going to start doing this. First of all, please do that during some other time in the year.
- [29:18]
A
But if you are going to do.
- [29:20]
B
That, treat that as that lane. That's that new content lane. So, for example, we were trying that out at Hexcloud at one point and I wanted to make sure we still had the original. Let's try the one that's much prettier but let's also have that original there for safety because, like, I, beside, bizarrely working in a gambling type industry, I am not a gambler. And like, I am not here if I'm going to take a risk, I'm also going to hedge my bets. And so if the campaignified one turns out better, great. Oh, my God. We learned this. Now we can go campaign ified. This is phenomenal.
- [29:53]
A
Thank you, God.
- [29:54]
B
Jesus, my ugly ad.
- [29:57]
A
Keep your. Keep your, like, fail safes intact to people. Don't just pull them out of the ad account because it's Black Friday. I could talk to you about this forever. Okay, where can people find you? And we'll have you back to do the next section sometime soon.
- [30:08]
B
Yeah, no, you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm Joanna Wallace, but I changed my name, so it's Joanna Sloan Wallace. Good luck trying to spell that. I'm not the best spelling author Joanna Wallace.
- [30:21]
A
You know, it's fine. It'll be all right.
- [30:22]
B
And yeah. And then you can also find me in my series that I do Fix it and post with Recharm, which is my favorite app asset organization platform that we say. Yeah. Where I talk about this kind of stuff as well on YouTube.
- [30:38]
A
Thank you, Joanna. This was lovely. We're gonna have you back for part two. I don't know, maybe whenever you're back on your trip, let me know.
- [30:44]
B
I know. I'm in New York for a month for this new job, which is very exciting.
- [30:47]
A
You're here for a month?
- [30:48]
B
I've been here a couple weeks. My first day is tomorrow. VP of Paid Creative Effort. I don't even know the title yet.
- [30:57]
A
I'm like, what is my job? We're gonna have to have you back and talk all about that transition because now I want to hear, like, from scratch. You're starting up basically, like, I am brand new to their ecosystem. What are you gonna change? What are you gonna keep?
- [31:11]
B
I'm gonna learn a lot about. That's where I'm going with this.
- [31:15]
A
You know, I. This is the reason why I love new, like, starting new jobs, though, because it's like, this is gonna be interesting. I don't know anything about this particular entity. We're gonna learn.
- [31:23]
B
I wear.
- [31:24]
A
Now you know all about pots and pants, and now you're gonna learn about shorts and pants. You know, you go where you're needed, and needed is really what it is. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us on the show today. Appreciate you guys listening. If you want to follow me, I'm aralevinger anywhere you consume content. If you like this show and if you like this episode, go ahead and like subscribe. Share with a friend. Drop us a review when you have a minute. We would appreciate it. Otherwise, have a great week. We'll see you next time.