What I Learned As a Competitive Archer That Grows Shopify Businesses

PDF to go with this episode: https://www.shopify1percent.com/downloads/tip-of-the-spear/

If you push your flat hand against piece of wood, nothing goes in. But put that same amount of push behind a perfectly sharp point, and it cuts right through. Same amount of work, different focus.

We're all working hard. Most Shopify businesses won't lose because of lack of effort. They'll lose because the effort wasn't focused, or it was focused in the wrong direction.

I was a competitive archery most of my life, even winning a few national championships. There's a lot you can learn from how an arrow works that will help you grow your Shopify business!

Grab the free Spear Map, put the tip of the spear on next week's calendar, and make your Shopify business 1% better.

💡 BIG IDEAS & TAKE-AWAYS:

• What did a woman with 9 cats teach Procter & Gamble about what customers are really buying?
• How can AI read every review and support ticket you've ever received and tell you why people actually buy from your Shopify store?
• Which of the 6 common Shopify bottlenecks is holding your store back right now?
• Why are the sharpest Shopify stores building a team of AI agents with one job each?
• What's the archery number that tells you if your week is tail-heavy, and how much of your time needs to sit at the tip to fix it?

🛠️ RESOURCES & LINKS:

I mentioned the Spear Map on the show. It's a free one-page worksheet that walks you through your point, your edges, what comes off your plate, and the FOC math for your week. You'll find it on this episode's page at: https://www.shopify1percent.com/downloads/tip-of-the-spear/

The prompt for finding your point: export your reviews and support tickets, remove customer names and emails, upload them to ChatGPT or Claude, and paste this:

"Read every one of these. Ignore generic phrases like 'I love it' and 'great quality.' What do customers say they count on us for, in their own words? Give me the top 5 themes, how often they show up, and 3 real quotes for each."

Your week's FOC (front of centre): take the share of your hours spent on your point and edges, and subtract 50. Half and half is dead centre. 62% of your week is 12% FOC. 70% is 20%, which archers call extreme.

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Here are a few of the links and resources mentioned on the show:

• Shopify, connecting your store to AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude, Grok): https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/apps/connecting-ai-tools
• Grok Bot by xAI: https://x.ai/bot
• ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com
• Claude: https://claude.ai
• Harvard Business Review, "Make Time for the Work That Matters" (Birkinshaw and Cohen, 2013): https://hbr.org/2013/09/make-time-for-the-work-that-matters
• Gloria Mark, Attention Span: https://gloriamark.com/
• Alex Hormozi with Ryan Daniel Moran on Capitalism.com, "the offer is the tip of the spear" (transcript): https://www.capitalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Alex-Hormozi-How-To-Make-Offers-So-Good-People-Feel-Stupid-Saying-No-Transcript.pdf
• Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit (the Febreze story): https://charlesduhigg.com/the-power-of-habit/
• Gary Keller and Jay Papasan, The ONE Thing: https://www.the1thing.com/
• Eliyahu Goldratt, The Goal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goal_(novel)
• Jim Collins, the "stop doing" list: https://jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles/best-new-years.html
• Peter Drucker, "Managing for Business Effectiveness" (HBR, 1963): https://hbr.org/1963/05/managing-for-business-effectiveness
• Dan Martell, Buy Back Your Time: https://www.buybackyourtime.com/
• Dr. Ed Ashby's arrow FOC research: https://cpw.state.co.us/Documents/Hunting/EHU/UpdatePrologue-UnderstandingFOC.pdf
• Steve Jobs at WWDC 1997, "focusing is about saying no": https://allaboutstevejobs.com/videos/misc/wwdc_1997_closing_chat
• Bold Commerce: https://boldcommerce.com

Did you know leaving a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review on Spotify, or Apple will give your shop gooood ecommerce karma? ❤️