Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to check in to check out the E Commerce growth podcast from Mobile First.
My name is Justin Ehrenstein and my co host is Connor Burke.
Welcome to check in to check out. My name is Justin Aaronstein, CPO of Mobile first and alongside me we have Connor and our guest this week is Paige Chilson. Welcome to the show, Paige. Tell us where, where are you now? What are you working on?
[00:00:32] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks, Justin.
Really appreciate having you having me on this show. Yeah, I am funny enough. About a week and a half out from a layoff.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: I'm so sorry to hear that.
[00:00:45] Speaker B: Yes. So being an E Commerce executive with about a decade in the game seems like it is now more prevalent in the game than ever. It doesn't change my resolve to stay in this industry and continue to learn and evolve because it's a really special, special industry to be a part of.
[00:01:04] Speaker C: It can happen to anybody, no matter the experience.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: So before we get into it, how are you feeling today?
[00:01:09] Speaker B: You know, I'm feeling pretty good, right. Every day feels like I get to learn a little bit something new about what the outside world looks like when you are not in front of a screen for hours at a time solving multiple problems across different areas of the business and cross functionally. So there's a bit of this really bitter, bittersweet learning that comes with these times after a layoff where you take a couple beats and it can really offer a little bit of creative thought that you really hadn't really come to as you were. So head into the game at your current companies feeling good, so you get laid off.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: What are those kind of steps you start to take to figure out what's next to prepare your life to like reset and figure out who you are?
Because if you're human, like, you've put so much of identity in your job, unfortunately, at least as Americans, we do that.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: We really do that, don't we? Yeah.
Yeah. You know, I think always the first step is grace with yourself, right. You know, you close that laptop after your conversation that everyone dreads, right. And you just have a moment to just sit with your emotions, right. Process that year. Two years, three years. God forbid. I've seen some people that are posting 10, 20 years and they're out, take a moment to process it, right? Give that that sort of emotional space to yourself and then lean into some of those things, as you mentioned, that remind you of who you are. So luckily I actually had my bachelorette party two after.
[00:02:47] Speaker C: Oh, nice.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: And it was a fantastic reminder to be with my closest people that one they didn't even ask me about my job pretty much the whole time.
[00:02:59] Speaker D: Right.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: And they've known me since I was young. And so I would always say, if you can take that time with your people who they don't know you, they don't know you as this VP of E Commerce, they don't know you as a cross functional partner.
[00:03:14] Speaker D: Right.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: Spend time with those folks, it's just chicken soup for the soul, as they say. And then, you know, really go back to your.
Go back and really think through, you know, why did you join this industry in the first place? Take a step back and kind of learn how it's evolved.
Spend some time with some former colleagues. I've had, man, the amount of people who've reached out to me over these past couple weeks, incredible colleagues who, you know, are cheering me on from the sidelines. They're sending me job descriptions. Go back to some of those folks who you always said you would work with again and start conversations.
Doesn't have to immediately be dust off your resume and get it sent across the board.
[00:03:56] Speaker D: Right.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: Unfortunately, a lot of resumes are getting added to these, these applications these days. But just take a pause to do some of that conversating around what is going on in the industry, what's happening with your former colleagues in your network, what are the big problems that really need to be solved in the industry. And do some of that work because it will put you in a much better mindset as you start to do some of those more tactical admin efforts around application dusting off your resume and considering your. Your next step.
[00:04:28] Speaker C: I love that sentiment about really just not wrapping your identity up in your job. I think that's something that, that my partner and I talk about a lot, that it's. It's really hard to separate yourself, especially when you are very passionate about things, which I think a lot of people in this industry are. It's really hard not to see your day to day as a, a way to define what you are and what you do. Um, and I think what's really funny is we always joke about it because you get stressed out about these things that, you know, you have clients, you have maybe a boss or somebody that will stress you out, and then that kind of permeates the rest of your life. But we always tell each other that, like, just have to remember you can't be in trouble with another, another person. There's just no such thing as that as an adult. And to just always remember that, like you are separate from your job. You. You have your own identity and, and to always remember that. And that's what it sounds like you're doing right after this is just getting back in touch with that and realizing what is it that I want to do.
[00:05:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:18] Speaker C: Which I think is really important.
[00:05:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
I love that. I love the. You can't be in trouble with another, Another adult.
[00:05:26] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: Yeah. That, those are those little learnings, you know, they talk, you talk about is a lot of conversation across multiple industries right around, you know, the nervous system, impact and kind of the way that we work today.
[00:05:42] Speaker D: Right.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: We are, as E Commerce, I always say, we are open 24 7. So your pressure is you don't get to close the shop. You don't get to say tax season's over.
[00:05:52] Speaker D: Right.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: Well, maybe we get Black Friday. But that just amplifies everything.
[00:05:55] Speaker D: Right.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: So you're, you definitely, like there's even this physicality and this sort of, you know, you do have that feeling of like you're in trouble all the time. All the time.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:05] Speaker D: Right.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: And even when it's a, it's a conversation with a colleague. Yeah. It can, it can feel that way. And even, even, you know, I, I've been in the executive leadership teams.
[00:06:15] Speaker D: Right.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: And so the, you know, technically, who do you have to be in trouble with?
[00:06:19] Speaker D: Right.
[00:06:19] Speaker B: The CEO. You know, it's you still, it doesn't go away your whole, your whole career, no matter what position you're in.
[00:06:26] Speaker C: Yeah. I love this. I've actually never heard that before and I'm really surprised. I never heard that. But that you're open 24 hours, that's coming from like a person who worked in retail for like high school and college and a good portion of my life. I've never thought about that. And that's really interesting. I don't really have much of a follow up, follow up on it, but I'm going to probably take that away and internalize that a little bit. That's an interesting concept. Yeah.
[00:06:48] Speaker A: So as an E Commerce executive, what were your skill sets? What's your specialty? You can't be great at everything across E Commerce. What were you great at?
[00:06:56] Speaker B: Yeah, probably best at knowing what I'm really not good at. The team. The team would always laugh because I would always say, limit reached.
[00:07:04] Speaker D: Right.
[00:07:05] Speaker B: Okay. This is, you know, I know enough to be dangerous. Right. But then I reach a limit. And so the skill that I really lean into there is how do you find the best talent in all of these variable areas?
[00:07:17] Speaker D: Right.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: How do you find folks who can do everything from run an email segmentation approach and strategy to a coder who can help you really refine your site experience, reduce some of the load speed.
[00:07:33] Speaker D: Right.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: Those are two fundamentally different things. Right. One, you're thinking macro, you're thinking about consumers and the other you're doing really best, you know, best case scenario, you're doing testing, you're doing more numbers based, you're doing much more coding. So really understanding how to build a team, knowing where your own gaps are, I would say is sort of my secret superpower. And really knowing what good talent looks like in today's world.
[00:07:58] Speaker D: Right.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: Resumes Bless AI has really entered the resume space incredibly, you know, never not guilty of that because we can always use some refinement, but a lot of that can create some really polished looking applications and candidates for roles.
[00:08:15] Speaker D: Right.
[00:08:16] Speaker B: It's just really important to spend that time understanding a skill set and making sure, yeah, this is a rockstar we're going to bring onto our team. It's really the most important skill set, especially as you grow in your E commerce career because you can't again, you're 27. Be awake 24. Seven.
[00:08:32] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:08:32] Speaker B: I can't make sure every hour and every second is perfectly executed. That's what I need the team for.
[00:08:40] Speaker D: Right.
[00:08:40] Speaker B: That's why I build that team.
[00:08:43] Speaker C: Or go ahead.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: I want to dive into this a little. How do you know what the gaps in are on your team? How if you were to tell someone that's up and coming, maybe a manager looking to become a director, how do you identify, how do you teach someone to identify what the gaps are in the team?
[00:08:58] Speaker B: So it's not too dissimilar as the effort in understanding where maybe leakages in a funnel.
[00:09:05] Speaker D: Right.
[00:09:05] Speaker B: I've built a team and it's kind of a unique approach that I've had the blessing of being able to build a digital team from scratch.
[00:09:13] Speaker D: Right.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: I built it against the funnel. So really building the skill set at each stage is really critical because you will see very quickly. All right, we're going through the entire funnel. Things are rocking and rolling. We're getting great traffic in. We are seeing people add their email, we are seeing people check out, we are seeing people come back at a high retention rate. Fantastic. CRM teams rocking and rolling. Site teams doing great. Every single time we need to go live with something, we're delayed by two days. Okay, that part of the funnel, right, the site, or maybe it's a landing page, that part of the funnel needs some work. Okay, what is happening? Then you dive into the operations. Okay, we don't have enough QA folks. Or okay, now we got to dive into what's going on in qa. Okay. QA needs, you know, four hours to do X, Y and Z. Okay, well, what tools are we using in qa?
[00:10:08] Speaker D: Right?
[00:10:09] Speaker B: How do we push that, you know, person to say, hey, I need to go and source some tools over here or I have to automate this or I have to create more structure here. When you look at your skill sets along the funnel, you can see those gaps really clearly. And it's a lot easier to dig into the operational modalities that are happening because instead of, hey, the QA team is the worst. They're, you know, screw em, they don't have the right talent.
[00:10:37] Speaker D: Right.
[00:10:37] Speaker B: You're looking at it and going, this is just a gap in our process and we have to fill in some skillset here.
[00:10:42] Speaker C: How are you able to tell when it's a good time to hire maybe a partner for, you know, a need that you have or to hire an actual candidate?
[00:10:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I think the big, well, the first big question is how many people do you need to do that?
[00:10:58] Speaker C: Great, love that. Okay. Yeah.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: You know, I always think about, like paid media is a great example. There's always lots of conversation, you know, do we build in house or do we, do we pull in agency? I think the prevailing is probably agency, right in that setting. Because, you know, if I think about I can, you know, take all of this level of effort to bring in this team of highly specialized in Google and Meta and TikTok.
[00:11:23] Speaker D: Right.
[00:11:23] Speaker B: Or I can go and seek out an agency that's got seven people, all specialize, and they're not just working for our brand, they're working across brands. So not only are they delivering that scale that you're not getting internally, but they're also able to leverage some of that skill set across multiple brands, which is really, I think, in certain areas, incredibly critical, especially when you're more top of funnel.
[00:11:47] Speaker D: Right.
[00:11:47] Speaker B: Because you do need to be competitive as you start to get deeper in the funnel. Sometimes it's actually not that much of an advantage to pull in an agency because sometimes they don't know your data as well and they get too distracted.
[00:12:00] Speaker D: Right.
[00:12:00] Speaker B: Maybe they aren't that great at the segmentation because, well, they're looking at this, this company doing this over here, but you have a different customer set, so you need somebody much more intimately familiar. So always just look at it, of how many people do you need to do that, how specialized they need to Be. And also, what is the advantage for them being in the competitive space with you?
[00:12:19] Speaker C: I love that answer. I don't know that I've thought about it in that framework, but starting with, you know, how many people does it actually take to do the job? Which is, I mean, honestly, such a hard question to answer too right now because it, it, I mean, I think the short answer that we're all afraid of hearing is like, you know, it takes zero people, it can be an AI.
And so I think that's something that it's, it's difficult to do right now. So it's definitely a, a strong skill to have, which is, it's good that you know, you have that and that that's something you can use. So. Yeah.
[00:12:47] Speaker A: So you then also talked about identifying candidates and reading through the AI resume. So what are you looking for when you're actually trying to find real talents?
[00:13:01] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So I mean, it's easy when you are, when you're scrolling through, you know, I've had ROLES More recently, 300, 500 applications. I mean, that's, it's, it's an absurdity, right? Like no human can sit there and do that. So you do need the robots for some of the, some of the filtering.
[00:13:20] Speaker D: Right.
[00:13:20] Speaker B: Just so you aren't overwhelming yourself.
[00:13:22] Speaker D: Right.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: But when you get down, like I would probably say, you want to look at, if you got that big of a pool, look at 10 to 20 of them. Rule out really quickly on some of the administrative things.
[00:13:33] Speaker D: Right.
[00:13:33] Speaker B: One of the benefits of being in E commerce is you want somebody who's thinking really holistically, not just about the content, but you also want them looking at the design, the structure, the ability to tell, quote, unquote, tell a story.
[00:13:48] Speaker D: Right.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: Especially if you're looking for somebody in that, you know, director of E Commerce, holistic type position. So I'm looking for that to help me weed down.
[00:13:56] Speaker D: Right.
[00:13:57] Speaker B: Can you be holistic about your resume in the same way that you would the site, the experience, the funnel and then next step? I'm really looking at do you know the skill set? Do you understand our tech stack? You know, I do think that there is much to be said about someone walking in already understanding most of your, your tech stack and potentially those that have worked in some that you're reconsidering?
[00:14:18] Speaker D: Right.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: Are you looking at moving to a new CRM? Are you looking at diving in deeper on AI, Right. You maybe want to bring in somebody who has some of those skill sets that are really functionally missing from the team Great example of this. We hired a copywriter who was actually going to school to learn about AI so when I looked at that in the resume, I was like, this is incredible.
[00:14:43] Speaker D: Right.
[00:14:44] Speaker B: When are you going to go find a copywriter that is not just an incredible copywriter and man, he is good, but it's also somebody who's willing to lean into the future and learn more and be a part of the evolution. So also looking for that, you know, it's easy to get caught up in a resume. Oh, I've worked at this brand and this brand and this brand and this brand. Sometimes those big brands, you're doing one, two things. You're working for a much smaller brand, maybe a little unknown. You're doing everything right. You are. If you're a director of E commerce at a small, you know, 200 minus company, you're doing a lot. So it's also looking at what is the right skill set that you need. Do they need to be super holistic and can they, can they be an octopus? As I like to say. Right tentacles everywhere.
[00:15:31] Speaker C: Yeah, that's interesting. That's. I like the comment that you made about essentially they need to be like inquisitive and open to new concepts. And I, I honestly think that's what we always try to hire for here and we talk about that a lot, that the best hire is the people who ask good questions. And now that there's really bad questions, but, you know, there are better questions. And that's the things that we're, that I think are really hard to identify with candidates. I think even more with AI, it becomes a lot harder to sift through those candidates and find the people with that type of mentality. But I agree, I think in my experience those have been the best people I've worked with. The best people I've hired. Even the best clients, I think are the ones that come in and they, they know the right questions to ask. They know how to be wrong. Which I think is another aspect of that. And it's, it's, you know, that to me is the great candidate. So I love that you said that because it's definitely something that we look for whenever we're.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And at the risk of giving away my secrets to anybody who I future hire, if you don't have questions at the end of our, at the end of our interview, it's a huge, it's a huge red flag, as they like to say. Yeah. Because I mean, again, in our business, we're 24, seven, we have a lot going on. And if you don't have questions about an ask, there's no way I'm covering all of it in our.
[00:16:48] Speaker D: Right.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: In our 30 minutes or our hour. And so that is a very, very key when you get into that interview stage is ask making sure that the questions are getting asked as well. And I'm very intentional about structuring my interviews so that there is space. Right. I'm already letting you know at the beginning I'm leaving space for you to ask questions. So I would hope that there would be several.
[00:17:06] Speaker C: Yeah, I fully support that way of doing it.
[00:17:11] Speaker A: So I think you've provided some amazing insights and it's because you have all this experience and you've done some amazing things.
I think more interestingly, especially people that are in a similar role, what are some of your failures? What's something that you look back on like I could have done that better or I learned from this.
[00:17:30] Speaker B: Sure, yeah.
You know, so one of the things that I think a lot about and I think, you know, a lot of folks as they are coming up in their career, right. Is when there are challenges, right. Or when there are issues. How do you manage around an issue when it pops up, right. And you have responsibility or you have ownership. How, how loud are you being if there's an issue? How much are you advocating for that challenge and that problem?
[00:17:55] Speaker D: Right.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: My guess is a lot of folks in the industry have that one or two thing in their, in their business that they are so adamantly know is not happen, not going well or not. Right. And they, you know, maybe aren't pushing as hard because of the political climate of an environment. So much of my failure has come from not being as boisterous. And a lot of the folks who've worked with me know me as a very boisterous person. So they'll laugh to hear me say that. But it's in part because, you know, I've been in scenarios. You know, for example, there was a big issue back when I was a fabric buyer and we had done this big catalog and a coworker of mine had, she was sick. We got the catalog needed to be edited QA same day. And I, you know, did it, walked all through, put a bunch of post its in was like, we got this, it's perfect. And one of the issues that we came across after print was the one thing I was responsible for, which was the promo code in the, in some of the subtext and the, and the T's and C's, which as we can all imagine is Fine. When we're in the E commerce space.
[00:19:06] Speaker D: Right.
[00:19:06] Speaker B: It's probably why I don't love print and probably why I stick with E Commerce. But that can be a huge issue.
[00:19:11] Speaker D: Right.
[00:19:11] Speaker B: You can have considerable loss. Now when this happened, it was brought to my intention. I was like, we'll be, it'll be fine.
[00:19:17] Speaker D: Right.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: Like it's an issue. Okay. And one of the things that I don't think that I yelled and kicked and screamed enough about is like, okay, this is a really big issue and we need to go and we need to solve it. And so, you know, you have to run a balance between being an alarmist versus being really proactive. Because as these challenges arise, if you don't address them and you aren't addressing them, really hyper cross functionally.
[00:19:41] Speaker D: Right.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: If you're like, oh, it's not that bad. Okay. But then somebody in operations is like, oh my God, we have, you know, all this fabric coming out like we're panicking.
[00:19:49] Speaker D: Right.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: So I think it's really important that you make sure that you highlight when something's a challenge and you start to learn about what is the right tempo and pace of communication to make sure that when issues arise, you're pushing for it. You're advocating, you're really clear about what are the multiple impacts across the board, across the funnel, across the whole operational set. It's always where I've, I've fallen down and learned a ton. And it's, it's brought some really good approaches to how to, how to be more risk averse as well.
[00:20:20] Speaker A: How to be more risk averse. How interesting.
[00:20:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:24] Speaker A: So I think one of the like, big things that I struggle with, with big companies is their risk aversion.
[00:20:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: As a. So, so you're saying you personally probably are less risk averse than the company and you were learning how to adapt to that. Is that accurate?
[00:20:42] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:20:42] Speaker B: And I just. Now I think that's a total. That's everyone's challenge as an E Commerce director running these programs.
[00:20:50] Speaker D: Right.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: Is you are faced with an organization that is much more risk averse.
[00:20:54] Speaker D: Right.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: You're working with an operations team is going to be the least tolerance for risk ever.
[00:20:59] Speaker D: Right.
[00:21:00] Speaker B: Then you start to like work with R and D teams. Forget it there. I mean, and then the legal team. Oh my goodness.
[00:21:04] Speaker D: Right.
[00:21:06] Speaker B: You know, and, and I've been in compliance compliant businesses.
[00:21:11] Speaker D: Right.
[00:21:11] Speaker B: So they are, they can be really risk adverse. And so I think that's one of those things where again, if you're in E. Com, you can edit.
[00:21:19] Speaker D: Right.
[00:21:20] Speaker B: You know that, you know, you can edit, you know, you've got, you know, it's not one person coming in the store and they're never getting. You can go and you can find that, you know, customer again.
[00:21:28] Speaker D: Right.
[00:21:28] Speaker B: If not, we can find another one on the cheap. So there is this element of E commerce folks tend to be more risky.
[00:21:35] Speaker D: Right.
[00:21:35] Speaker B: We're going to try, we're going to test, we're going to, we'll figure it out.
[00:21:37] Speaker D: Right.
[00:21:38] Speaker B: If there's an issue and we can edit, we've got all the tools to do so. But I do think it's a really important element, especially when you naturally are an E commerce person and are much more risk, much more risk tolerant, is to learn why others are more risk averse and figure that out because it really creates the ability for you to know, when am I going to press too hard? Where do I need to again, be more loud? When do I need to, you know, I've gotten my hand slapped more than one times of hey, we pivoted, we ran a sale last minute and I just, you know, let my shipping team home.
[00:22:17] Speaker D: Right.
[00:22:17] Speaker B: You know, and now I've got these pile of orders and we can't process them.
[00:22:20] Speaker D: Right.
[00:22:21] Speaker B: To me I'm like, oh, this is great. We're pushing on all these orders.
[00:22:25] Speaker A: It's a good problem.
[00:22:25] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: You wanted more revenue.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: Exactly.
But your operations team is going to say, well, great, now, like now, now I am doubling down on the work and we're going to be delayed and that's an impact to the customer.
[00:22:39] Speaker D: Right.
[00:22:39] Speaker B: And so making sure that you're following that thread and again, knowing when to be loud, when there's going to be, there's going to be challenges.
[00:22:45] Speaker D: Right.
[00:22:46] Speaker B: Even if they do come from positive moments like, hey, too many people are ordering.
[00:22:50] Speaker D: Right.
[00:22:50] Speaker B: A lot of problems show up in a business when orders are flowing.
[00:22:54] Speaker C: Very true.
[00:22:55] Speaker A: You just saved someone thousands of dollars worth of therapy. I wish I had this conversation with you eight years ago.
[00:23:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:02] Speaker A: But yeah, it's a real problem. Like E commerce people are, they want to try new things. And yeah, I think a lot of.
[00:23:09] Speaker C: People also, when they start in new positions, there's always this one, a feeling to come in and make a difference and show that you're providing value. But at the same time, the other side of that coin is you have to realize that everybody else has already done that to a degr and that often you'll come in and be like, well, why aren't we doing, you know, X, Y, Z and you have to go into it with the understanding that like more than likely people have tried to accomplish X, Y, Z and they have failed for various reasons. So exactly what you were saying, that understand why people are risk averse, I think is such a, an important thing to keep in mind that like yes, there are better ways to do things, there might be other solutions or you know, ideas that could improve or optimize what is already working. But a lot of the times things are so much more complex than we can imagine and there's so many unknown unknowns and being able to walk into an environment and say, you know, I see what we need to do, but I need to be willing to listen and understand why we're not doing that before I go in and raise all the alarms and raise the flags and say, you know, hey, we need to go, whatever it is, fix this or do this or not, you know, whatnot. So I, that's, I agree with Justin. I think you did save some people some therapy money.
[00:24:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I should start charging.
[00:24:21] Speaker C: Yeah, we've been talking about that this week actually.
[00:24:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:26] Speaker C: I think we might pivot to E commerce therapy as the actual.
[00:24:31] Speaker B: Listen at a time. I would have, I would have, would have paid for it for sure.
[00:24:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: Going back to the risk aversion. So we talked about the risk aversion, maybe on the more corporate level, but going back to your personal career where you are now, is there any risk aversion that you're thinking about in your next role or how you search or anything or do you want to continue as you were?
[00:24:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's, it's a really good question.
[00:25:02] Speaker D: Right.
[00:25:03] Speaker B: You know, big risk aversion that I'm thinking through right now is now my therapy.
[00:25:07] Speaker D: Right.
[00:25:08] Speaker B: Is that I have always gone after businesses that have a big juicy problem. I and colleague, my old, my former colleagues know this and they'll call me up and they'll say, hey, the homepage is messed up on here and nobody's listening and can't get anybody to do anything help like come help like no one knows how to get on Amazon what's going on.
[00:25:26] Speaker D: Right.
[00:25:26] Speaker B: We all know these stories and so I in the past have sort of been in a position where I can't help myself and I need to go in and, and really help that problem. Makes me a great E commerce leader. Not always so great to my mental health. Because you can be pushing up against organizations.
[00:25:46] Speaker D: Right.
[00:25:46] Speaker B: There is reasons why they haven't been able to update that homepage. And sometimes when you get into it, it's a big, big fat mix of operations, tech and people.
[00:25:56] Speaker D: Right?
[00:25:56] Speaker B: And the people part is always the most challenging. It's, it's where the therapy comes in. So, you know, I think when I think about my next role that that's probably my biggest risk aversion is how do I seek out an organization that maybe is looking more forward than looking in the rearview mirror. How do I think about, you know, the industry has multiple challenges, right? At any one point it's personalization was a challenge.
Load speed was a challenge. Tech stack was a challenge, right. It seems to be the big challenge is boards are begging for AI and they have no idea what that means. Sorry to call anybody out. And to me that's a very forward thinking challenge.
[00:26:40] Speaker D: Right.
[00:26:40] Speaker B: I know. I hearken back to that copywriter who is learning about AI and what a, what a space to be in to lead an organization who, who probably has similar fears to AI as they have about too many orders or operations getting, getting messed up.
[00:26:58] Speaker D: Right?
[00:26:58] Speaker B: And it has that people fear.
[00:27:00] Speaker D: Right.
[00:27:01] Speaker B: In the same way. So I think I'm in. I'm inclined to seek out a role that's looking to expand with AI, maybe needs some internal leadership around.
How do we hold everybody's hand, right? How do we, instead of saying, well, we're just going to bring in AI and everybody's going to get laid off immediately. How do we take that same concept of that copywriter who's learning and say we still need humans, right? We still need humans in a control seat, right? And moreover, there's so much incorrect data that you absolutely need folks who understand what's really driving these engines. What are you putting into it? Um, because I'm going to tell you, most companies have very, very messed up data. I'm sure you, you run into this.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: All the time, every day.
[00:27:47] Speaker B: It's completely inaccurate, terrible, like attribution. You know, when I, again, when I think about that next role, it's really how do I step into an organization, really support them in AI growth? Because I know, I know boards are asking and there's going to be a gap in the industry of folks who are willing to push through, who know how to get teams to work together on a scary new effort.
[00:28:12] Speaker D: Right.
[00:28:12] Speaker B: I've done multiple, you know, transitions re platforms, restructurings, change management is a big skill set of mine because I understand people and their fears, right. There's a lot with AI and it's going to grow incredibly rapidly. Also somewhere that's ready to have a roadmap of a year in advance two years in advance and also be comfortable with ripping it up because it's going to change a lot.
[00:28:34] Speaker C: Totally very true.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: And so where do you think E Commerce is going in the next six to 12 months? What, where are the areas of opportunity with the changing environment, costs going up, tariffs are there, economic uncertainty, obviously AI is going to be part of it.
Where's the areas of growth for E Commerce?
[00:28:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I think there's two areas. One, I would say social selling is still, I think, in its infancy as we know it.
[00:29:03] Speaker D: Right.
[00:29:04] Speaker B: I think there is some brands with really great awareness. I'm a huge TikTok fan. TikTok shop, I love it. I think it's like, I think it's a great way of using social selling at a scale that, you know, it combines your social, your affiliate in a way that I, I don't know if we would have dreamed of.
And offers you a new top of funnel.
[00:29:27] Speaker D: Right.
[00:29:27] Speaker B: Not a lot of actual transaction on TikTok Shop itself. More funneling into, you know, your omnichannel set across Amazon is probably the biggest kind of leakage that you see from TikTok shop. But there's such an advantage to that environment. I think we're going to see more pop up, especially as TikTok is being bought. We'll see a lot of changes to that algorithm. And as we saw with Meta and X.
[00:29:51] Speaker D: Right.
[00:29:52] Speaker B: As these larger corporations build and buy these platforms, a lot of folks see the magic getting lost as a user, right. I can't say what I want. It's not the same environment I'm getting. You know, they use the term shadow ban, so they're going to start to move to new platforms. So I can see an emergence of new platforms, especially in the social selling space that are going to start to rival TikTok pretty heavily, especially as we go. I think it's getting, I think purchase timeline is maybe March or April of next year. So I can imagine somebody's out there building something. I'm so sure of it.
[00:30:26] Speaker C: So as much as I agree with you, I also immediately scroll on every TikTok shop video that I get. But I completely agree with what you're saying. So it's, it's a fun little contradiction, I guess.
[00:30:38] Speaker B: Well, the algorithm's trying to figure out what are you gonna stop on, right?
And I think that's the magic, right, of it's okay if you just keep scrolling, right? Because they know that they've got you even in the scroll, right? It's not a billboard. You drive by it's not a one take chance.
[00:30:55] Speaker D: Right.
[00:30:56] Speaker B: So they'll keep going until they get you.
[00:30:58] Speaker C: I mean it's a. Yeah, I, I actually got a tick tock the other day which I think is a really interesting way to look at the mental model of the platform. But where it asked me, you know, hey stop, what was the TikTok you saw two scrolls ago or something? And it was honestly I was like, you know, I damn, I don't know, I've been, I've been duped. They got me. So yeah, it's, it's interesting how it works but it's effective, it's definitely effective. So I think you're right to say that's where things are going to be.
[00:31:23] Speaker B: Going incredibly so I think that's a major path. I think the other major path is I think folks are going to start to purchase in, you know, in chatgpt directly.
I kind of rumors around the street. There's some brands that I think are in conversation just a rumor, not nothing valid about that but I can see that becoming, you know, you're not, you're not leaving that environment. You're immediately purchasing which I think again the brands are going to win. There are those that have their data together, their details together and make it easy for that platform to pick up products.
I don't know what that specifically looks like. Maybe a bit of learning on my own end as I, as I take my sabbatical if you will here. But yeah, I think it's going to be a real question of what is the use case for our DTC environments. How does Omnichannel shift with that? Does Amazon take take lion's share of the purchasing within those environments or is it going to be more direct to consumer?
[00:32:27] Speaker D: Right.
[00:32:27] Speaker B: So I think there's going to be a rethink of where are actually doing their transactions.
[00:32:32] Speaker A: Love it. Well, thank you so much Paige. And kind of to wrap up, I know you're in the midst of kind of final wedding planning and kind of maybe taking a break. Is there anything you're reading or listening to in the e commerce space that you find really interesting right now that you'd love to share?
[00:32:48] Speaker B: It's a really good question, you know A, I've been stepping away from screens so I, I really, one thing I really enjoyed this week is I had a chance to go to Etail and listen to some speakers and just hearing directly from brands and some of their leadership has just been really invaluable. So I don't have a, I don't have a list of books or podcasts. I'm listening to this podcast now. Of course.
[00:33:15] Speaker C: That's one of them.
[00:33:16] Speaker A: Yeah, that's one lesson.
[00:33:19] Speaker B: We appreciate the point but yeah, no, I would say if you can.
[00:33:23] Speaker D: Right.
[00:33:24] Speaker B: And especially those who have this mental break take time to go and hear some panels. Right. Look, look at what's in your city and just. And go and listen.
I will tell you there is nothing more fantastic than stepping outside your screen and hearing multiple leaders in this space talk about what's challenging, talk about what's ahead. It gives you a space to go and explore deeper. So I would highly encourage anybody, but also especially folks who maybe have found themselves in a similar position of being laid off, don't stop learning from those around you. The e commerce industry is so much knowledge to share and are very willing to share it.
[00:34:05] Speaker A: Well, thank you again so much, Paige. This was absolutely outstanding.
[00:34:08] Speaker B: Thank you, Justin. Thank you, Connor.
