Evan J.

It's important to hire people that fit the mold. Where we've deviated from this even slightly we've had staff turnover. Early on in the interview process you should state your why, your purpose and hire folks that are aligned while disqualifying folks that aren't from your hiring processes.

In 2024 people have high expectations because of companies like Apple, Amazon and Netflix delivering what people want and fast. You need to at a minimum do what you say you're going to do if your customers are going to tell other customers. Word of mouth referrals are the best way to get high quality long term customers in the long run. Building good will with partners and customers along the way always is a smart move.

Transparency and honesty about your solutions always lead to the best results in the long term if you're delivering a high quality offering. Trust and relationships is everything in business. Doing right by your customers and being completely open with them helps to reduce objections proactively and eliminate fear. Reducing friction by leading with transparency is key. At Straight Up Growth, our process includes an audit where we're clear and open about why the strategy is the way it is for your brand based on what has happened and what will happen once we are working together.

People will always want an incredibly powerful outcome. If your product or service can deliver an outcome that almost no one else can you can charge almost whatever you want. In my first business I delivered an outcome that was what you'd expect from hiring 10 sales development professionals and was able to charge a large premium. At Straight Up Growth our team delivers 2X Amazon Sales on average over the last three years. Reliable, predictable, revenue. Our offering and many of our clients offerings are premium. A higher price point could suggest proven success. A proven successful outcome will always be appealing to customers.

You need to consider that more and more customers are shopping on mobile. On Amazon specifically, the large majority of shoppers are on their cell phones. This means you must have everything from your headlines, listing copy and quick videos that tell your brand story focused on folks that are buying on their phones. Do you optimize your Amazon listings for mobile?

Even with rising advertising costs I'm not even a little surprised when I see 30-50% wasted ad spend on Amazon and Walmart these days in a new potential customer's advertising accounts. What's your wasted ad spend? The way we calculate this at Straight Up Growth is simply advertising on search terms that isn't being converted into any revenue. Often times we'll have a potential customer with hundreds of non-branded search that are converting into sales wasting money on "research" from their current agency even when there is statistically significant data suggesting there are far better ways to spend their budget like non branded winners. This metric becomes even more important because profitability is key in 2023 heading into 2024.