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- [00:00]
John
Yeah. I think the best brands, they know if they are telling a product story or a brand story. I think that there's a distinction. And if you're telling a product story, I see that as your product is so unique and it's so different. That or it's easy to use, or it's best in class. That simply diving into product marketing stories is enough to convince you.
- [00:25]
Cody McGuffey
Welcome to Built online. I'm Cody McGuffey and this podcast is all about one thing. Building the business, your dreams. Selling art, teaching classes, starting a blog, launching a brand. Whatever your passion is, we show you how to turn it into real income. I created everbee to help anyone with a dream start and scale business.
- [00:46]
John
Ever Be, Ever be Ever be Ever be Ever be everbe.
- [00:50]
Cody McGuffey
We now serve over 800,000 creators all across the globe. On this show, we bring on real entrepreneurs who've done done it. They share their secrets, they share their failures. The exact steps that you can take to get started. What if you can get one golden nugget out of today's episode? And it's the breakthrough that takes you from just dreaming to actually living a life on your terms. At Ever Be, we believe that every human is a creator, and every creator should own a business. John, what's up, man?
- [01:17]
John
Not too much. How are you?
- [01:19]
Cody McGuffey
I'm great, man. Thanks for coming on.
- [01:21]
John
Thanks for having me.
- [01:22]
Cody McGuffey
We're here. Ready to talk, talking biz. Let's do it. Tell me about Wonder Sauce, man. You are the CEO. Co founder. Co founder. Founder of Wonder.
- [01:33]
John
Co founder.
- [01:34]
Cody McGuffey
Co founder of Wonder Sauce. You guys have supported and helped grow some of the biggest brands in the world. I'm really excited about diving into your brain and kind of picking out some of those things that made some of those brands successful. Can you tell us a little bit more about kind of how you define yourself and kind of what you do?
- [01:56]
John
Yeah, sure. I mean, how I define myself. I kind of grew up on the Internet and watched the Internet grow up alongside me. So we wanted to create an agency that was a representation of the way we saw the evolving kind of door of marketing. So by design, our business is very fluid, and our only constant has always been change. The business itself is about 15 years old. We started in 2011. We're about 100 people headquartered in New York City, and we consider ourselves a business acceleration agency. So we help brands overcome various inflection points of scale, sometimes that is launching the business for the first time. You know, for instance, we've launched something like three dozen direct to consumer brands. Since the inception of wondersauce. In addition, other times it's, you know, they've reached a plateau and they need help getting to that next level. And sometimes those plateaus can be massive. Like a 50 or $100 million business going to the next level or Simply like a $5 million business trying to get to 7. And we offer two kind of services that our clients typically engage us for. So one is around. Is around digital transformation and architecture. So we kind of step in and from a user experience, a design and a strategy standpoint, we're building digital product websites, e commerce experiences, and mobile applications. And whether that's like a net new thing that's never existed before or a brand looking to trade up, you know, maybe they've. They've kind of outgrown their current systems and they need to migrate to something, something new. We help them identify where they should go. And then we handle all the. The design and the build everything.
- [03:49]
Cody McGuffey
The other package, we offer everything custom too. Right? Like, in that case, we could do.
- [03:53]
John
Custom or we would basically vet, like, who the platform solutions and then integrate and make it feel custom by throwing in a layer of, like, UX and design. So it feels very branded and ownable.
- [04:07]
Cody McGuffey
Beautiful. Do you. Can you share with. With us what are some of the, I guess some of the brands that you're most proud of kind of have in your portfolio, or maybe not even proud, just like some of the ones that we might know who they are just to like, kind of tie that back to home.
- [04:24]
John
Oh, yeah. I mean, over the years, we've worked with, God, so many different types of businesses. A lot of work in the direct to consumer world. I mean, back 10 years ago, we worked with brands like Bombas, Boland, Branch, Lively, Corpus. So a ton of brands in that space. Golf.com, they're a client. We do a lot of work in the automotive space. We just won a bunch of awards for one of our clients, the Dairy Farmers of America. We really literally like marketing and selling things like milk and cheese and stuff like that. So we're all over the map. Brookfield in the real estate world. We do two of their big properties in New York City, which are located in the Financial District, and one's in Midtown. We're driving physical traffic into these large spaces in New York. So we're really all over the place. And it's what has kept things fun has been not being tied to one industry or sector and being able to learn a lot across the crowded landscape.
- [05:31]
Cody McGuffey
I feel like it's Fairly rare in my experience. It's fairly rare to have an agency that is more. Sounds like your hands are kind of broad in the industries. Deep in expertise, but broad in the industries. It seems like. Whereas a lot of times we all speak with agencies or have friends that own agencies, they tend to specialize in one niche, one demographic and one skill set. How did you find that that was like, did you guys just expand and evolve over time or did you guys always have that strategy?
- [05:59]
John
I. It's kind of like the way we always saw the marketing space. I don't think we ever really wanted to. Like, I was never passionate about advertising and marketing. It wasn't like I went to school for it and it was something that I wanted to do and I had a really strict point of view about it. For me, I just follow customer behavior and the, the world is so connected that I felt like I needed to create a company that had a good understanding of like the build side, the marketing side and then the acquisition side in terms of like media content, campaigns and then like UX and tech. So for me like those things are all necessary to be like very fluid and being able to speak across those very easily. And then it's been, you know, a 15 year journey to really mature those offerings where we've got it down to kind of like two packages, one on the, you know, building side and one on the, the marketing creation side.
- [06:55]
Cody McGuffey
You said that once. You once said this. I think it was in one of your blogs. Your E commerce site should be treated as a living, breathing product.
- [07:05]
John
Yes.
- [07:05]
Cody McGuffey
Why do you say that?
- [07:08]
John
I think that brands have a, they have a rough time sometimes relaunching something that they're super proud of and thinking they're finished. And in reality you're never finished. And your website, your app, your, your own property can always be better. And if you're a student of what your audience is saying, you're, you've got a robust CRM, you're tracking your website analytics well and you're able to basically always have a list of improvements. So for me it's this idea that you're constantly iterating and evolving your property because your customer is always changing, the world's always changing, technology is always evolving, so you're never quite done. And this idea that you need to redo your site every two to three years, while that is true, you really should look at it as like it's more of a week to week iteration versus a year to year and the brands that are really doing it well have Kind of worked that into their operations and their, the way they go about their day to day.
- [08:12]
Cody McGuffey
What are the thing, what are the things I'd be iterating on, for example, like that. Because I'm guilty of this too. When I first started my E commerce brand six years ago, I just like set it up and I thought I was like good to go and like I ran traffic to it and it was getting some conversions and I made some tweaks here and there. But like I didn't really do a whole lot. I kind of just like set it and forget it. Obviously in hindsight that's completely wrong way to do, wrong way to look at things. But what are some things that people should be paying attention to when it, when it comes to treating their site as like a living, breathing product?
- [08:43]
John
Yeah, I mean it's going to change based on the type of business and your, your heat mapping and your analytics will tell the story. But I think like one thing is your merchandising, how you go about pairing products together. You know, if you think about the parallel to, you know, what it's like to shop in a physical store, there's an art to that, you know, the way you place things and how you place it among other products. It's what leads to people buying more stuff when they walk out or when they're about to check out. So, so always figuring out the best way of merchandising your products, what are going to be like hero products that are going to be like the destination of the shopping experience versus what are bolt on things. And sometimes those bolt on things are good kind of bait to get you into the core shopping experience. So that's one thing I always like to kind of think about. And ways you can optimize would be like your E commerce content, making sure it's super flexible. So you're constantly being able to kind of merchandise in different ways. And you don't have a content library that is so specific that it leaves you little room to kind of evolve and change things like your PCP and your pdp, your product category page or product detail page. Those are some of the hardest working pages on anyone's site, regardless of the product category that you're in. Because the majority of traffic is coming from, you know, it's coming from Google, it's coming from meta, it's coming from social. So it's entering largely through those channels. So you're always going to learn how best to make those pages really succeed. And in many ways it's introducing landing pages and having a landing page strategy. So those are just a couple of ideas, but you can kind of go off the deep end filtering search. Your homepage is a whole can of worms you can open up. But there's a lot.
- [10:33]
Cody McGuffey
What are some common things that you see even amongst the big players, the big brands or even the small startup guys, what are some mistakes that they see? Like low hanging fruit? You're just like, oh yeah, that needs to be fixed, that needs to be fixed. And you just happen to see it all the time. Do you have anything that comes off the top of your head?
- [10:49]
John
Choice paralysis is one. I think there's a fear that the user is not going to like what they see at first glance. So the default by the brand is to kind of like ambush them with a million things and the user gets overwhelmed and they end up bouncing. You see a high bounce rate or really low engagement on, on whatever entry point that they're engaging with first. That's something that we see a lot where you're introducing like choice paralysis and, and ultimately it's overwhelming the user. So we, we see that quite a bit.
- [11:26]
Cody McGuffey
What's an example of that? Like what, maybe one of your brands that you've worked with in the past? Because sometimes there's multiple products. So there, there has to be lots of choices. Right. But I guess, can we, can we use an example? Maybe we use like a hair tools brand where it's like, let's call it. You guys work with L'Oreal in the past, right?
- [11:46]
John
We have worked with them in the past, yeah.
- [11:47]
Cody McGuffey
I don't know the products that well, of course, but I know it's a beauty brand. Like what's an example of someone not doing that properly? Like choice paralysis?
- [11:56]
John
Yeah, I mean, not using a specific brand, but if we wanted to talk about a category like personal care, like you said, I think a user is on Instagram and they're hit with some sort of skincare routine. It's an ad, they're intrigued by it, they click to learn more. And the ad was a three step process. And the next click you'd expect that three step process to ultimately unfold where you're getting someone who's top of funnel, you have to move them into the mid funnel. So maybe like they've expressed interest and intent. So the next step of that process is mid funnel. Mid funnel is going to be really driving home product benefit. Key concerns. How much is this going to cost? How much time is this going to take? All the things you're kind of running through your brain when you're going through purchase decisions. So like the user is expecting to see something like that and I would say doing it wrong is they see that product but then they see four other things that are going to basically reset the shopping process back to the beginning and they're like, oh wait, maybe that, that set wasn't for me. It seems like this brand's offering additional sets. Maybe I want to learn about this one or this one or this one. And it's introducing four to five new questions that did not need to be introduced. The person has clicked, they've expressed interest, now you take them one step further down the funnel where the next click is going to be a product detail page and hopefully a conversion.
- [13:31]
Cody McGuffey
So those versus dropping them off on the homepage for God forbid or two, they drop them off on a collections page just with a whole bunch of options. You're saying rather just go straight to the bottom.
- [13:43]
John
Exactly. It could be the collections page where they think it's around what they've expressed interest on in the brand, but because they are not really thinking about their journey, a linear standpoint, they've introduced things unknowingly that are going to cause confusion. And like to your point, when you were saying about like specialized agencies who have specialized industries and a service to me, like the user doesn't know where Instagram starts and the website ends and they shouldn't know that. So for me like marketing and website development and media are so intertwined and the brands that are doing it well, they've got like a 360 journey point of view on their customer and we want to help advise there. So like that is a perfect example of the way I see marketing. It's journey based versus like vacuum and niche services.
- [14:39]
Cody McGuffey
I love that. Yeah, it's a very holistic way to look at things, like bigger picture to also think. And then we can drill down into the specifics. You work with some of the most impactful and biggest brands in the world and you've seen a lot of the things that they do right, a lot of things that they do wrong. You've seen all like everyone in between, it seems like to me and also from different industries amongst the players that have been the most successful, like the top brands. Right. We just know they're just like that's a crushing brand. What makes the best, like what are the things that the best brands do that the others just don't seem to do? Like what are some. Trying to identify some of the similarities?
- [15:18]
John
Yeah, I think the Best brands, they know if they are telling a product story or a brand story. I think that there's a distinction. And if you're telling a product story, I see that as your product is so unique and it's so different that or it's easy to use or it's best in class. That simply diving into product marketing stories is enough to convince you. Apple, right. You play with an iPhone or an iPad or a MacBook. It's good. It's usually better or best and best in, best in class. So they can, they can really lean into product stories and how their creators use those product stories, use those products to basically empower their lives. You know, so that's a product story. I would say a brand story is when maybe you're, you're living in a commodity where you know you've got a good product. It's not to say you have a, you have a bad product, but very, a number of companies can say something very similar to what you're saying and their products can also hold up. And again, you could, you could tell a brand story and still have a really good product. But by simply leaning into products, it's not differentiated enough. So you need to build a brand like a liquid death. Right. They're selling the biggest commodity in the world, water. But they're doing it incredibly well. They're creating and making their own space by telling stories that are very, very different than what their competitors are saying. And they're almost creating their own market. It's fascinating and they're doing an incredible job. So I would say like using those two brands that everyone knows about, like Apple, great at product marketing. Liquid death, amazing at brand marketing. So two different slices. And I would say the best brands in the world, they know where they are on that pendulum and what they need to focus on. Whether it's big brand moment campaigns or super acquisition focused moments or simply updating their homepage, they know their sweet spot. You don't want to be in the middle where you don't quite really know where you fall or you have false pretense about like where you think you are.
- [17:31]
Cody McGuffey
Do, do brands ever do both really well. Great brand story and also great product story or you, they kind of, it's binary. It's like they're choosing one or the other.
- [17:40]
John
Some, like the very best, are pretty good at everything.
- [17:44]
Cody McGuffey
Sure.
- [17:45]
John
But I'd say they're still picking a lane, right?
- [17:47]
Cody McGuffey
I'd say like, so they're intentionally picking a lane and they're leaning into the lane.
- [17:51]
John
Yeah. And the lane doesn't have to be 100%. It could be like 60, 70%. There's like a swing here. But, you know, you kind of want to be conscious of that. So. And I'm not saying it has to be an exact science. And you can't. If you say our value is our product, that you can't do a massive brand campaign. You can, but a big part of that brand campaign is going to be your product. So to me, like, that's always been a really, really interesting thought exercise, especially as an agency, when we have to quickly get onboarded to brands all the time. It's one of the first things I'm thinking about is like, okay, what is this? Is this like a product story of the brand story? Sometimes I could, I figure it out right away because it's very obvious. Other times I have to, like, you know, we talk to our client partners and we, we have discussions around that.
- [18:39]
Cody McGuffey
Can we talk? I want to hang on this subject a little bit because first of all, I think it's a new concept to, to our listeners, this idea between brand and product story. And I haven't had a lot of conversations around this either. So selfishly, I want to pick your brand. Coca Cola. Are they leaning one way or the other? Which one brand? Brand. Why?
- [19:00]
John
Because there's a lot of competition.
- [19:04]
Cody McGuffey
Okay, so there's a lot of competition.
- [19:06]
John
They, they're selling, they're selling lifestyle, they're selling culture. It's, it's, it's you. You know, and also, like, they could obviously lean into what makes each of those products unique within that. But to me, it's a brand story.
- [19:25]
Cody McGuffey
And if they were to lean into the product story, they're like, hey, Coca Cola is made with this ingredient and this ingredient, and this is why it's better than all the other ones. But they're not doing that. They're like, leading it to, like, the cool kids on the, in front of the gas station, like, popping a Coke and like, drinking that.
- [19:41]
John
Coke is all about, like, Coke has a specific, you know, every one of their products has, has a specific brand story. Not to confuse things. Like, again, I don't work with Coke. I don't really know. You could just see it by, you could see it by, by just watching it. Like the, the, the Coke archetype versus the Diet Coke. It's different. But they're telling a brand story through the lens of those products and how those products will be consumed by their target audience.
- [20:05]
Cody McGuffey
How about Nike brand? Brand? Why?
- [20:09]
John
Yeah, they had the. My Opinion. One of the, the, they've built one of the best brands ever through really great athlete stories and partnerships dating back to the 80s. You know, like Michael Jordan is everything, right? And that built a whole category of, of marketing and it still does today. Like the Jordan business is incredible. So uh, interesting.
- [20:33]
Cody McGuffey
Okay, so what, what I'm hearing is that like, so I'm, I'm being educated right now is Nike and Coke are similar because they're kind of, they're kind of selling you on like hey, we're the club, we're the cool kids club over here. Come over to play with us. And, and just because of this is who we hang out with. This is kind of like who you identify with versus Apple. They're kind of doing some of that for sure, but it's mostly about like hey, we're way, it's way easier to use. The specific product has this feature, this feature and it's way better because of X, Y, Z. There's a little bit of like hey, we're the, we're the innovators. We're the different thinkers over here too. It's a little bit of brand story but it's mostly products you're using best.
- [21:11]
John
In class tools to whether it's think different or whatever their, their, their brand platform is at the moment. But you know, Apple has done an amazing job of creating products that are suited for people of all walks of life and they've built a business around usability and ease of use. And you know, um, we were talking before, before we jumped on air here and it's, and we both have, we have kids, right? You ever watch a three year old use an iPad? It's, it's, it's incredible. It's like then you, you watch a 90 year old use one and they figure it out too. It's like they've got it all covered. And what I love about Apple always is they're, they're not necessarily first to market around technology. Like they wait and, but when they go to market, you know it's going to be great. Easy to use and of the quality they've established. So that's product marketing for me.
- [22:01]
Cody McGuffey
How about Tesla? Tesla in between? I'm kind of back and forth on Tesla right now in my head.
- [22:09]
John
You know, it's interesting one, many reasons right now. That was a bit of a grenade you got me, Cody. I think, I think that like to me it's a, it's more in more skews brand mainly because of the, the space that they were so early to kind of scale. You know, I'm not, I'm not saying they were the first ev, but they were the. They're really the biggest and they're the ones that have. Have grown it to what it is today. And what's interesting about the. The Tesla brand is, you know, I don't really know how to kind of encapsulate it anymore because it's become such a hot.
- [22:55]
Cody McGuffey
Very convoluted. Yeah, I know.
- [22:57]
John
Yeah.
- [22:57]
Cody McGuffey
But it is like, to me, it's. I mean, I, I have a Tesla truck and I, I'm sold on all the features. I'm not necessarily sold on, like, the brand, just about Tesla. That's not why I came over to buy this truck. So I'm kind of sold on these other things with this truck and, and then. But I do understand, like, there's a brand component too, where it's like founder led almost too. Cause Elon is still around, like, leading the charge, obviously. And so you have. There's a whole lot of, like, people that just follow that journey as well. And so I don't know how to, like, I'm gonna. I. I can't figure out which way it skews. More brand. Led or. I'm sorry, brand. Brand marketing, or is it more product marketing? I'm. I'm.
- [23:37]
John
It's a good one. I think it's evolved quite a bit.
- [23:41]
Cody McGuffey
If you had to say which one it skews. What do you think? Brand?
- [23:45]
John
I think it's more brand right now. Yeah.
- [23:49]
Cody McGuffey
If you were to. There's a lot of creators, like when I say creators, a lot of content creators, business creators, designers, entrepreneurs essentially, that listen to this and watch this. They're trying to calibrate and figure out how they win in 2025 and beyond. What are some things that they should take away or could take away, you can share with them? Like, if you don't get anything else right, get these, like, three things right and you have a good chance of winning. Do you have any advice for them?
- [24:24]
John
These are. These are small businesses, right?
- [24:26]
Cody McGuffey
Sure.
- [24:27]
John
Yeah. I'd say commit to a marketing strategy that you feel like you can accomplish every single day and do it for a year. It could be as simple as picking the two channels that you believe your customers are going to be most active on and posting twice a week something that you feel will resonate with them. Whether that's client testimonials about people using your products and why you think it's great, whether it's promotions and sales, whether it's how to or different ways of, you know, interacting with your brand and whatever. I would say pick the, a marketing strategy that you can commit to and put yourself out there in a way that feels a little bit uncomfortable at first. For some people, it's going to be posting at all. It's going to be posting something on like LinkedIn for the first time. Ooh, that felt weird. For other individuals, they're going to be a little bit more, you know, comfortable and used to that. Maybe that's going on a podcast, maybe it's starting a newsletter. But I think like, never has it been more accessible and easy to do your own marketing. So whether you're one person, two people, three people, I think that like, there's enough out there that you can kind of do your own thing and without the help of outside partners and you could, you can do it for a year or so and see how it works for you. So I'd say, like, first and foremost, commit to. Is a simple marketing strategy that you think you can execute on yourself. I'd say the second is figuring out how to work in a feedback loop for your business that doesn't exist currently. Whether it's a post purchase survey, whether it's some sort of, I don't know, some sort of like email loop where you can get people to give some honest and transparent feedback, or if you have a customer success arm, figuring out a way to get that incorporated into it. But figuring out how to get feedback that's new to the business that you've never had the year prior, and acting on it on a quarterly basis, basically keep it on and then every two to three months, collect it and really go through it and like reflect on it and see what you can kind of extract and work towards fixing maybe problems or leaning into opportunities. And what's a good third one? Let's see. I'd say just constantly being a student of your competitive set and asking your customers who you consider to be your competitors, because that's always an interesting one. I know, like, entrepreneurs are super competitive. We all get in our own head around who we think our customer is. But I feel like if you end up asking your customers, like, who else were you considering for this, this type of work or for this product? You'll get a bunch of answers that you've never expected and it may actually like, upset you.
- [27:26]
Cody McGuffey
I never even. Yeah, yeah, it's true. I've never actually asked.
- [27:30]
John
So I'd say do, do those three things and you'll learn a lot.
- [27:33]
Cody McGuffey
Interesting. And then yeah. So what I'm hearing is like the, when you said pick a marketing strategy, you also specifically said, pick something you could stick to for like 12 months. You said two full year. And what, what you're not saying there is important. You're not saying pick six things and then like, try six things this year. Like, you, you said pick where your people are hanging out, spending their time, and just focus on there and basically break that thing open first. Give it a good try.
- [27:59]
John
Like, do what you can do. And I, I, for me, it's like, do it for a year and do stuff that you can physically do yourself. So there's no excuses. It's like, it's like starting a workout regimen, right? If you're lazy and you spend two to three years doing nothing, and then someone basically says, all right, next year you're going to be fit, but what that takes is five days a week, you're going to run four to five miles. And I want you to do weight training five days a week as well. And you don't like running and you don't like weight training and you went from zero to now. But you're asking me to run five times a week and lift weights five times a week. It's never going to happen ever. So maybe start by saying, let's do two to three days of basic weight training and we'll show you what that looks like. And I want you walking at least five days a week. 10,000 steps. You could do it in your living room if you don't have the time to go outside. But I don't care. Let's start there. Let's reevaluate in six months, if there are things that you could actually do, you have a better chance of succeeding. I found that when you're too ambitious and you're giving people stuff that they're never going to actually focus on and do, you're not going to change the business. You're not going to actually make any dent into things. And that's a big part of what we do. We want to give our brand partners marketing strategies, e commerce experiences that they could succeed with and use to get better at marketing to their customers. With where we always say, like, I want to build a website that you drive. Like, if you could only drive, you know, like a, like a Nissan Altima, but you'll make it look really good. That's what I'll give you. If I don't want to give you a Ferrari. And then you, you crash in a week and it doesn't work or you're.
- [29:50]
Cody McGuffey
So afraid to drive it that you don't touch it kind of thing. Right?
- [29:53]
John
Yeah. Yeah. You need to. You need to take these tools and make them better. That's the whole thing, like use simple tools and get really good at using them.
- [30:04]
Cody McGuffey
I love it. I think it's a good time to move to the rapid fire. Questions. You ready, sir? What's your favorite business book?
- [30:14]
John
I think Ogilvy on Advertising, which is classic. You know David Ogilvy, the founder of Ogilvy, one of the biggest ad firms of all time. It's his kind of point of view on the space. And it was written in, I think, the early 60s and it still holds true.
- [30:30]
Cody McGuffey
What's the title of the book? It's written by David Ogilvy, but David.
- [30:34]
John
It'S called Ogilvy on Advertising.
- [30:35]
Cody McGuffey
Ogilvy on Advertising. Amazing. What's one thing?
- [30:38]
John
The next one is Setting the Table by Danny Meyer, who's the founder of like Shay Shack and Union Square Hospitality Group. It's in a master class on how to service clients. It's amazing those two come to mind.
- [30:52]
Cody McGuffey
Amazing. What's one thing that you wish that you knew before starting your business?
- [30:58]
John
I always say I if I can start another business, I wish I can go back to when I was 27 and didn't know anything because it's easier. So I wish I can go back to not knowing anything about anything because you think so much more purely and you're less risk averse and you don't operationalize every decision in your head and run it through finance, legal and all this other stuff. So actually I wish I throw it back at you. I wish I don't. I wish I didn't know anything at all.
- [31:26]
Cody McGuffey
Ignorance is bliss.
- [31:27]
John
Yes.
- [31:28]
Cody McGuffey
What's the worst business advice that you've ever received?
- [31:33]
John
Overly academic advice that people try and scare you with. You need to know this. You need to go to this school. You need to know how to code. You need six years before you can do this. You need 10 years before you can do that. That stuff is all. It's all just the scare tactics and deflection. And it's not true. I think that you'll know when you're ready for any type, for anything. And if you feel like it's worth the risk and you're comfortable with the downside of failing, then it's not a risk. And if you don't know the downside of your failure, then don't take the risk and figure out what your downside is. I always said the first thing I look for whenever I'm taking a risk or making a business decision is I look for the failure. What does failure look like? And if I could stomach that, it's a good decision because I'm not afraid of that failure. If I don't know what failure looks like, that's horrible. It's horrifying. That's where you really get into trouble. As long as you're comfortable with the failure, take the risk.
- [32:39]
Cody McGuffey
I love that if your family and your friends and your customers all had to get together without you and they had to get together in a room, and their task was to write an honest article or blog or book characterizing John's traits, good and bad. What are some of the things they would say?
- [33:03]
John
They'd say excitable and passionate about literally anything curious and. I don't know, I'd say fair. I. I like to cons. I. I think of myself as. As I think I'm fair. Doesn't mean I'm easy all the time.
- [33:31]
Cody McGuffey
Anything, Anything negative in there. Sounds like those are all pretty good.
- [33:35]
John
I mean, I think that each one of those things, you're dealing with a specific personality type. Right. Like, I think that, like, my excitement and passion for things could probably drive people crazy at times. I think that the idea of being fair means I like to. I love watching people grow, and I love giving them more and more responsibility, and that can be overwhelming at times. And. And I like to. I like growth stories. So, like, with that, you know, sometimes things go south and you have to, you know, fix things. So I'm sure that there'd be some funny stories about times where I wasn't the best because I'm not perfect and I make mistakes.
- [34:19]
Cody McGuffey
We're human.
- [34:21]
John
Yeah.
- [34:21]
Cody McGuffey
How would you define a creator? Who is a creator in your mind?
- [34:26]
John
It's anyone who's putting anything out into the world. It's. It's someone who writes. It's someone who takes pictures and thinks about ideas in a different way. For me, it's just about, like, there needs to be some form of document. Like, you have to document it somehow. I'm not saying, like, if you have an idea, you have to, like, realize it to its, like, biggest potential and deploy it as a business. But I think, like, you need to be able to at least write it down clearly, explain it, visualize it maybe. So a creator, to me can be. Is someone that could take an idea and put it out there so it.
- [35:12]
Cody McGuffey
Sounds like it needs to come from an idea in your Head is not necessarily creation, but as soon as you put it out into the world in some form, it's now a creator or create a creation.
- [35:20]
John
Yeah, because I think that there's, like, a sense of vulnerability with being a creator. And if there's no vulnerability, then you're not putting anything out. It's just ideas. So for me, like, having an idea and being like, I've got something in my brain, give me like 10 minutes, I'm going to write it down, or I'm going to, like, collect my thoughts and then jumping into a meeting or a brainstorm. As simple as it is, you're now articulating an idea to a small group of people. In a way, you're putting yourself out there, so you're kind of opening yourself to feedback. So I think that the creation process needs to have two ways. It needs to be like, someone being able to react to it. In some ways, it's like you're reacting to my piece of art or my film or my music. In other ways, it's like, what do you think about the vmal? Is it good to go? What's this? Is that idea cool? You know, things like that.
- [36:17]
Cody McGuffey
Do you think that everyone should be a business owner?
- [36:20]
John
I think everyone should do it. That is. That isn't interested by the topic. I don't know if it's for everyone. It's definitely for me. And I think that it's. It's an amazing masterclass and business degree that no school can teach you unless you do it. No book can teach you it, no mentor. It's a crash course in so many different things, and it's fulfilling. So I think that if it sounds interesting, you should take the leap, especially if you understand the downside.
- [36:58]
Cody McGuffey
That's good. I like that answer. A lot of times people answer that. Not that they're wrong or they're bad for saying it. A lot of times I get the answer as no way. Not a chance. It's not. It's, you know, and. Which I understand where they come from and usually they follow up with. It's extremely hard. It's extremely challenging. It's like there's all the downsides to it, which. Which I completely. We. We both agree on all those things. Very likely. But what you said is like, it's worth a leap. Typically, it's worth. It's worth taking the leap. It doesn't mean you have to be successful the first go or the second go or even the fifth go. But I think you said, like, the masterclass, it's not just in business either. It's like a master class. And who you are as a human, I mean.
- [37:41]
John
Yeah.
- [37:41]
Cody McGuffey
Like, what kind of resiliency do you actually have inside of you? You know, and it's, it's much more than we give ourselves credit for. Like, we can take a lot of stuff, a lot of stress and, and, and so I like your answer. I, I tend to, I tend to agree with it. If you're remotely interested in it. Let's see what business creation looks like for you and take a leap.
- [38:01]
John
Yeah. And if it's not interesting, no one is saying you have to do it.
- [38:05]
Cody McGuffey
You probably won't even hear this because you're not listening to this.
- [38:07]
John
Yeah.
- [38:10]
Cody McGuffey
John, where can people find you? Learn more about you, follow along your journey.
- [38:14]
John
Yeah. Well, you could learn more about my, my business. Wondersauce@wondersauce.com. that's W O N-E-R-S-A-U C E.com and you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active there, posting two or three times a week. And drop me a DM if you'd ever like to learn more about, you know, what we offer brands at all sizes.
- [38:32]
Cody McGuffey
Beautiful. John, thank you so much for, for coming on, man. I'll have to have you on again in the future. It'd be cool.
- [38:36]
John
Yeah, we'd love that. Thank you so much.
- [38:38]
Cody McGuffey
Go ahead. Talk to you in a bit.