What's One Thing AI Can't Copy About Your Shopify Store?

Jay Myers: [00:00:00] My guest today has done over 75 million pounds for those double, double our currency

in online sales. This number might even be outdated. I pulled this from somewhere on one of your sites somewhere, but

Matt Edmundson: yeah, yeah

Jay Myers: he's, he's built brands, he's failed at brands, he's sold over, I think, 20 e-commerce businesses. Um, and he's been doing this since 1998, which coincidentally is actually also, I think a lot of our listeners know, is when I sold my first product online as well too, 1998.

So we've got the exact same year

Matt Edmundson: yeah, yeah. We're like e-com brothers, aren't we? From another, another mother

Jay Myers: from a, from a different continent

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah.

Jay Myers: It's crazy. It's 1990. It's longer than most founders have, that I talk to and have been alive, so...

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah, yeah

Jay Myers: But there's something very different about my guest today. Before I, before I let him speak here, I keep cutting him off, but, you know, something-- he-- Most founders at his level, they've stopped doing the work, and they've moved on.

They might be on a beach somewhere. [00:01:00] They've just become consultants. But Matt's, you're-- he's in the trenches. He's running brands. He's literally... Before we started this episode, he showed me he's in a studio. He's got, he's got lights and microphones everywhere. He's building a brand-new studio, testing things with brands.

Just told me about something, which we'll get into the show, that he's testing with one of his brands that's crushing it. Like, this guy has been around forever, invested in brands, bought brands, and he's still testing things, breaking things, fixing them literally this week. So super excited to get into all of this.

You're not gonna be getting advice from five years ago what worked. Like, this guy's on the spot. Matt, welcome to the Shopify 1% Podcast. Thanks for being here.

Matt Edmundson: Jay, listen, I've been looking forward to this, man. Thanks for having me, and thanks for the intro. I feel like I've got a lot to live up to now.

Jay Myers: That's my goal. I like to set the stage high. It's o- it's only downhill from here.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jay Myers: We... I like to jump right into it. If anyone wants to know Matt's deep history and his personal life journey, go, go look at his LinkedIn profile, but let's, let's get right into some of the awesome stuff you're [00:02:00] doing. You make a big point on your site, um, and everywhere you talk actually, that you're not, you're not a theorist.

You're, you're, you're running stores today. Like, what does, what does that distinction mean to you?

Matt Edmundson: It means a lot, A, because, um, y- y- you'll be the same, Jay. I, I must get, I don't know, countless emails from folks offering me all kinds of advice. You know, like, we can crush it here, we can crush it there. And the people that are offering me that advice have never actually run an o- an online business.

Do you know what I mean? They're, they're really good maybe at this one little thing over here, but understanding the big picture of e-com, I think, well, they, they don't know. And so I'm just like, it fails for me at the first hurdle quite a, quite a lot of the times. And so like it used to be years ago, back in 1998, uh, if you, if you had like questions about e-commerce, you'd go talk to your web designer, right?

And you, and you'd go say, "What do you think about this?" And going to your web designer [00:03:00] asking them for advice about e-commerce is like going to a midwife and asking them for advice about parenting, right? It doesn't make sense. They're like really good at this one thing here. Doesn't mean they've got the expertise and experience that you need to sort of drive it forward.

So that's always been a big deal for me

Jay Myers: You know what else I notice? That's such an accurate perception of, of things. I also think there are a lot of people that they get to a certain stage, they've built something awesome and great, but now they're not building anymore and they've kind of become this like, quote-unquote thought leader

Matt Edmundson: Yeah

Jay Myers: They might speak at conferences, they might write resources and guides, but they're, they're not actually doing the stuff anymore.

And I, uh, I wonder, like, you know, there's authority when someone says something, and are they just going to AI, asking information, infor- details, and then just repurposing it in their own words? But because, like, I don't know, d- I'm just gonna say Gary Vaynerchuk as an example. Pick anyone. It doesn't... It could be [00:04:00] anyone.

But because of their status, no matter what they say, it has more weight. And I would rather listen to someone I don't... I, I mean, I do care a little bit about the status, but someone who's actually... Like what you said before the show, you just said... I should get, get right into this. I have a, I have a list of questions.

I'm gonna go a little bit off track here. But before the show, you, you turned your camera around and you showed me this studio that you're building, and you've got a 125-inch screen, you've got mics all over the floor. You're literally setting it up as we speak. And I was like, "What are you doing?" And you're like, "Jay, we got one of these brands.

We just launched a podcast, and it's only been 10 weeks and it's crushing." And like, you're right in the trenches. Like, I love that. Tell me about this podcast, 'cause what... So what this... I'm, I'm su- I, I didn't ask a ton before the show 'cause I was like this I knew would be interesting to talk

Matt Edmundson: yeah. Well, like you, I've been podcasting for a while, right? Love podcasting. As a medium, love it. I've got, I got... It's how we met, right? Was through the doing the podcast and stuff. And so I've always been curious, [00:05:00] right? We've done sort of the e-commerce podcast, and then I've always been sort of curious, how would that work for a brand?

Like would a podcast work for a brand? And, uh, it's different, I think, if you run an agency, a podcast, I can see how that makes sense. But for an e-commerce brand, we wrestled with that for a little while. And we have a... One of the companies that, um, I, I've got equity in is a supplement business, okay? And it, it operates, um, in the supplement space, very competitive space, as you know.

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: and so one of the things that sort of sticks out about our supplements is, one, they're all vegan certified, right? We, we went super niche on the market. And because they're vegan certified, your audience is a very different audience to somebody who's just shopping for vitamin C.

And we found that vegans, vegetarians, even people that eat meat, buy the supplements, they're very well educated, right?

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm,

Matt Edmundson: they have to be. They've got to understand everything to the Nth degree. And so we've [00:06:00] always done well by talking about the science of supplements, like on the website, in the blogs and stuff like that. So we re- we thought, "Well, what would happen if we did a podcast that made sense for our niche market, for our customer?

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: What would that look like?" So we created this podcast called So That's Why. Okay? And it's run by our head of marketing, Jen. She's awesome. Jen's... I didn't realize this when we bought J- bought Jen on. Jen's, Jen's got a PhD in biochemistry, right? We're like, "What?" Anyway, really clever lady. She's, she sort of heads up the podcast, and so there's three of us on the podcast.

Um, and I get to play the Joker, which is my favorite, you know, sort of role to

Jay Myers: The color. So

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the thr- the, there's three of us in the, in our Nottingham studio. We sort of sit around. And the studio, I mean, people always wanna know. We probably spent about 20 grand doing the studio, right? Um, so we've got this studio in Nottingham, [00:07:00] and we sit around and we talk, and we answer the science behind everyday questions.

Like, "Do I need eight hours sleep? Why should I drink two liters of water a day? Why does my skin go red when I exercise?" These, these are the kind of questions that we can look at and go, "These are what our audience are asking, so let's answer these questions on a podcast." And so we've, we're about 10 weeks into it.

We've recorded about 23, 24 episodes. And it's, yeah, it's unbelievable the impact it's had

Jay Myers: And so it's not specifically about products you're selling. It's, I mean, it's in the health space generally. Like, would it be any kind of science topic or something roughly about

Matt Edmundson: it's not even health, it's just the science of every, uh, the science behind everyday questions. So it's, it's kind of a broad idea, but we know by answering those we're gonna appeal to our customers, right?

Jay Myers: Yeah

Matt Edmundson: Um, because these are the questions they're asking

Jay Myers: Well, you know what's interesting? I, I think the thing that is the most valuable thing [00:08:00] you own right now is, is an audience. And, you know, it's so easy-- Like, content is so easy to produce. A website, you can ask Claude to clone a site, and it'll clone it. Product, pretty easy. You can... There's tools that you can white label products, create them.

But a true audience, like a true organic audience that follows you is, like, worth gold. And when you see it from the reverse side, like we see all these podcasters who, like, or they could be like YouTubers or anyone that has an audience, launch a brand. Like, you know, Andrew Huberman, any supplement he launches turns to gold and same as anyone else, right?

Like it's-- So that's kind of the reverse, but we don't see it where, like this is a perfect example. You've got someone who has the knowledge, who's built a brand, they have a product. Now they're creating the audience, and like there is no doubt in my mind that will work because y- we see it in the reverse a thousand times over.

Once you have an audience, [00:09:00] you can launch anything

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, exactly. That's exactly right

Jay Myers: kind of the, the principle behind this? Like, let's, let's just build the audience and the opportunities will be endless after that

Matt Edmundson: Well, I, I, I have this theory, Jay. I call it the Digital David Theory, right? So you know the story David and Goliath,

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: guy takes on the big guy. And so in e-commerce, we're the little guy. You've got your big guys out there, right? Who are crushing it, deep pockets, taking all the ad space, and we're kind of screwed.

The only thing for- that Jeff can't do, and actually now the only thing really AI can't do as well, is be me, right? So me is the kind of moat that we have. It's the differentiator. It's the thing which really helps us is our, is our voice. And so if we take that principle, that if I can, if I can somehow marry that against what I call the customer story, [00:10:00] so if I can take my story and the customer story and find that overlap, and if I can be in that space, not only will I build the audience, but I, I build a moat around that audience because someone else might be able to offer supplements, but no one else can be me.

Do you see what I mean? And so you start to build that brand loyalty in that respect, and, um, that's what we hope is gonna happen with the podcast, right? That it's, it's no longer just this faceless brand Vegetology that sells these supplements. That actually there's a team behind that. There's people we can get to know.

We can have a bit of... It's like, it's like you do the same thing with this podcast and your agency, right? The, the two are-- They're not mutually exclusive, are they? The, the two things are linked

Jay Myers: Y- 100%. And it's interesting, last week I was at SubSummit, missed you there by the way,

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, sorry

Jay Myers: I did, uh, a keynote on the main stage and spent half an hour [00:11:00] talking. And I was talking about, you know, the future of repeat commerce, and we have a product in the space, and what does, like, predicted commerce look like, and a number of things like that.

And I had a bunch of data, a bunch of stats, bunch of interesting things, but everyone came up to me afterwards, and even, even I had calls this week and they said, "Oh, I love that story you told." I told this story about a couple years ago when I, I got my protein powder and it... You know, protein powder's always in a big, a big jug, and I didn't make my way through it.

I'll condense the story a little bit here, but long story short, another protein powder came 'cause I was on a subscription. My wife got a little bit upset at me because in th- th- they're in the pantry and it starts to, like, now starts to take a lot of space and, and I, I didn't cancel my subscription.

I thought I would just get through it. I didn't. And then a third one came, and then she lost her mind and she was like, "Cancel your damn subscription." And so I canceled the subscription, worked through my protein, and then, I don't know, I just remember, like, a week or two later, I was at Costco and I just bought some other protein.

And so

Matt Edmundson: You've got issues.

Jay Myers: [00:12:00] Yeah. Well, the, the, the s- the moral of the story was the brand lost me as a customer, not because of their protein. It was Naked Nutrition. I love, I love their protein actually. Like, it's, it's clean and all that good stuff, but I'm not that picky. Like, you know what? I was at Costco, saw some protein.

At the end of the day, like, I know there are some people that it has to be s- very specific, but I'm not that person.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah, yeah

Jay Myers: And they lost me as a customer not because of the product, not their marketing, ad spend, webs- Everything was perfect. I just, you know, didn't want the subscription and then they lost me. And anyways, that's what we're trying to solve with our, with our new product.

But everyone came up and said that I, "I, I resonated with that story. I res-" And so story is so important. It's the only thing people remember. Like, they didn't remember the rest of the talk.

Matt Edmundson: Yep. They, they remember you and they remember how you made them feel.

Jay Myers: Yeah, that's right.

Matt Edmundson: And so if you can associate your product with your client with a feeling... Like for me, I, I'm a big fan of humor. If I can somehow take something that's as dull as dishwater, like [00:13:00] supplements,

Jay Myers: Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: bring a level of entertainment, you don't put those two words together usually, do you?

But if I can somehow do that in a way that resonates with our audience, then I- there's a real longevity to that. And you see the... And where you see it is, is in what you talk about, it's in the repeat purchasing,

Jay Myers: Yep.

Matt Edmundson: It's like, can we do that, yes or no? Um, and yeah, I, I, it works well

Jay Myers: I have an experience where I bought skin lotion for my daughter and, um, I can't remember. Sh- this one summer she had-- She was having like some skin issues and I looked for skin lotion that was safe for like a nine-year-old and I, I Googled and I... Anyway, I found a brand, ordered it, and then it, it actually didn't come.

And then a few weeks later I remember thinking, "Oh, where is it?" And I couldn't even remember the brand's name. I couldn't... There was no connection, no story, no

Matt Edmundson: Yeah.

Jay Myers: I coincidentally ordered it just because I Googled or I can't remember, AI maybe recommended it. I don't know. But even [00:14:00] when I got to the site, nothing came through and I could not remember the name and I was like, "How am I gonna find this order?"

And I searched, I searched my email, skincare, nothing came up. I didn't know the brand's name to search. I tried everything I could. I'm like, "I'm not gonna go through thousands of emails." I couldn't find the... So that was-- I mean, that's the extreme case where I could not even remember who the company was, right?

So

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. And it's a real shame when that happens because you've worked so hard to get the customer, right?

Jay Myers: Totally

Matt Edmundson: You've done the hard yards. Just go that extra mile and you, you win somebody for life. Um, it doesn't take an awful lot, I don't think

Jay Myers: No. You've worked with a lot of brands. Is it, like, you, you, you are currently running or owning or managing, is it roughly 20 br-

Matt Edmundson: No. So I've had, uh, I think 20 e-com businesses over the years. I've either set up, failed at, or run 20 e-com businesses. At the moment, we've got three, um, [00:15:00] online businesses. We are looking at two other companies right now in terms of sort of an acquisition prospect. So, uh, but yeah, it's good. You know, I, I love e-com.

I, I like going to bed knowing full, full well that when I wake up, I'm gonna wake up richer

Jay Myers: Yeah. And en- and enjoying what you're doing too, obviously. You're staying with

Matt Edmundson: love it. Yeah, yeah. Love it

Jay Myers: I wanna ask you, like with all the ones that some have been successful, you said some haven't, some have failed. Can I ask you what, what's been maybe the most expensive lesson you've learned through some of those failures?

Matt Edmundson: Most expensive lesson

Jay Myers: You don't have to put a dollar figure to it, but what's been a big... You know, you only learn things through failures and

Matt Edmundson: do. And to be fair, I mean, we've lost hundreds of thousands of pounds. Um, we have. Um, and I always say it's just y- I've had a lot of failures, but my successes, thankfully, far outweigh the failures, you know? And, um, I think, I think [00:16:00] for us, the things that we learned quite early on that were the expensive mistakes...

And I appreciate this is not for everybody, but this is just how we do business now, were things like don't take goods on credit. So when we were... When we had a skincare company, for example, which we sold during COVID, but we had a skincare company, and we would buy, I don't know, 100,000 bucks worth of product every couple weeks.

We were, we were selling it by the millions, this, this skincare.

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm

Matt Edmundson: But we made a point of bootstrapping the business so that every invoice we paid at the point of order, right? So I'd call the skincare company, and I'd be like, "Right, let's... Here's the order. Here's the s- the 100 grand order," or whatever it was, um, "and here's my credit card."

And they'd be

like, We, we can give you terms, Matt. You're a really good customer." I'm like, "No, but you can give me a better price for, for paying now,"

right?

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm

Matt Edmundson: And it meant that what happened was [00:17:00] every product we had on our shelves I owned, and I never got into th- this place where I had to rob Peter to pay Paul.

Um, and the security that brought us was great. So we've lost money, but the money we've lost, we had to lose, if that makes sense.

Jay Myers: Makes total scents

Matt Edmundson: and we learned that lesson the hard way because at, there were times where we would just... We would buy stuff on, on invoice, and you'd lose track, and then cash flow became an issue, and the way we do sales tax in England is kinda messy.

And all of a sudden, before you know it, you had to find, for a small business, finding 30 grand that you forgot about was just... That was hard work. Um, and so yeah, we... I appreciate not everyone can do it, but we... It was something I learned off one of my business partners, a guy called Andy, and it was a really sound business lesson.

Just... Yeah, so now if I go out into that warehouse, um, the studio I'm in at, in the moment is in the warehouse, but if I go outside into the warehouse, everything from [00:18:00] the packaging to all the supplements to the... We've got a gift company. Everything on every single shelf I own. So if I sh- if I shut the business down today, I don't owe anybody any money

Jay Myers: How did you get to that point though from day one? Like, don't... I mean, when you're starting, you had enough startup cash to, and then just grew it slowly as, as you could?

Matt Edmundson: You're just bootstrapped, and so every-- You j- Here's the thing, right? Founders, you, you start the business... Most people I know don't start the business so they can get wealthy, right?

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: That might be a goal,

but ultimately you start the business just 'cause you're like, "I wanna have a go at this.

wanna see what kind of adventure this is gonna be." And you don't mind working 12, 13-hour days if you can see the, the benefit at the end of the road. And so we were just like that. Um, we made the mistakes. We lost... Like, we borrowed money from the bank on a business venture, um, that was [00:19:00] selling these-- We sold online these caps that would fit on a beer bottle, um, and they just clipped on.

And the reason you would put them on, the girls would buy them, so when they went to the clubs, they could put them on the beer and they wouldn't get spiked

Jay Myers: Hmm.

Matt Edmundson: you couldn't drop the, the pills in. Um, it was sort of this anti-spiking cap, and we thought that was a good idea, and you could sell s- you know, you could screen print logos on these caps, so you could sell sponsorship.

And we thought this is genius until it wasn't. But we'd borrow money, and then it took us three years to pay that money back, and I'm like, "I never wanna get into that place again, really."

Jay Myers: Yeah. Man, just such a shame that, I mean, even a product like that has to exist, but it does.

Matt Edmundson: it's heartbreaking.

Jay Myers: You know where my, my mind went to, to cover, stop bees from getting into your drinks when you're outside? That's where my mind

Matt Edmundson: thing. It'll do the same. It'll stop bees get- it'll stop those things

Jay Myers: a few. Yeah, I've sipped a few cans and had a bee come up, but I mean,

Matt Edmundson: Yeah

Jay Myers: getting it in your drink spike's a lot worse.

Okay. Well then let's shift to [00:20:00] the other side of it. Um, you know, what's, what, what, what are you seeing that's working? I mean, there's a lot of reasons brands can fail. Our listeners wanna know, okay, this guy's worked with a lot of brands. What are you seeing that brands are working with right now? Actually, one thing I want to get into is, are you still doing...

You're in a n- uh, kind of a 90-day ch- uh, ch- challenge with one of, on Instagram with one of the brands. Is that still going right now?

Matt Edmundson: It started yesterday.

Jay Myers: Oh, it just started. Oh, okay.

Matt Edmundson: yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Jay Myers: Oh, so there's no feedback yet on that. I was gonna ask

Matt Edmundson: No. No, no. That was, um, my son. He's 22 years old, graduated uni with his degree in nutrition, and there's no way he was ever gonna work for anybody. And the reason he did nutrition at uni was he has always suffered since he was a young kid quite badly with IBS, right?

And the doctors, God love the doctors, you know, they do a phenomenal job, but they, they didn't help Zach. And the overarching thing Zach [00:21:00] heard when he was a teenager and when he was growing up was, "It's all in your head, kid," right? Not really that helpful. And so he went and studied nutrition 'cause he's like, "I think I can help people here," right?

"I can learn it. I can get me better, and then I can help people." And so this is a 22-year-old kid. He leaves uni, he works as a lifeguard over summer 'cause he gets paid to sit on a beach, right? And then September he, um, he comes back and is like, "Right, I'm just gonna start doing Instagram." So now bearing in mind I know e-commerce, right?

He does all of this without really talking to me about it. He's just made the decision. He's got a plan. He's knows what he's gonna do. He's sort of followed a few people and is, like, clear as day. And so now, what's he been doing that, six, seven months? He's got over 100,000 followers across Instagram and Facebook. Um, he's got a recipe book, and he's just about to release an app, right? And he's, in a [00:22:00] two months time I think it is, he's heading to Bali. He's gonna go traveling with his mate. He's gonna go sit in Bali for a few months, and then he's gonna go to the Philippines and he's gonna do the whole digital nomad thing.

And I'm like, "Huh." I'm kind of living my life again through my son. I'm like, "You go, lad." You know? "You, you have a go." And that's the thing that I'm noticing is working. It's the reason we're doing the podcast. It's this whole put yourself out there, whether it's through Instagram, whether it's through podcasts, whether it's through both,

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: and just be you.

You know, and do it in a way where people like that, right? And they feed into it. Don't be polarizing for polarizing sake. Don't be a jerk. mean, just be a, a decent human being. And, and that's what he's done. And you know what? He's properly killing it. And so- and we're seeing the same here in, in business.

It's just like that's the thing I think we're pressing into now because like you say, AI can do everything, right? It can write the blog posts, it can rip off the websites, it can make the websites better. [00:23:00] We've been pushing hard into AI. The two things that we're leaning into the most at the moment are AI, but also the content side of things.

Like, if we can get those two things working side by side, that's, that's the bit that excites me right now

Jay Myers: Yeah. It's interesting. My son is nine and my daughter's 12, and they watch not a ton of YouTube, but they have a few channels that they like. And there's this one, and I'll give a little... give a mention on the show here, but it's called Ordinary Adventures. It's like, um, travel vloggers, and

Matt Edmundson: Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah

Jay Myers: they go somewhere and they, they, they review the hotel and, and we love going to Disneyland and Disney World as a family.

And so, like, often they go to Disneyland or Dis- whatever, and they review all the different places. But it's just, it's an, it's an older couple. Like, they're probably mid-40s, and then they, and they just, um, and they just talk like normal people. They're not like, "Hi, everyone. Welcome," blah, like, not like, you know.

And I asked my son, I was like, "What do you like about this, this channel?" It's like he, he [00:24:00] just, he, he wants to watch it before bed and he wants to watch when he wakes up and, and he's like, "I don't know, Dad. They're just, they're not annoying to watch. Like, I just like them." And he's gotten to know them. Like, they're very interesting people, but they're just totally...

That's why it's called Ordinary Adventures. They're just ordinary people going on adventures, talking like normal people, telling their story, and sometimes they'll sit, and when they're reviewing one of the meals, they'll kind of go on a story for five minutes or 10 minutes. But that's what he loves and, and that's what connects him.

And so many times, I think, like, I fall into this trap too, where if I'm speaking in any kind of a public forum, whether it's podcast, webinar, or on stage or something, I feel like in the back of my head somewhere I'm thinking, "Oh, nobody cares about this story," or, "I gotta rush through it," or, "I gotta this."

But that's actually the best part, and that's what connects it. And even with a nine-year-old kid who we think, we think that generation has no attention span anymore. We're like, 'cause... [00:25:00]

Matt Edmundson: Mm-hmm.

Jay Myers: they do, and they crave it. And when you actually can tap into it, it's magical.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, it is.

Jay Myers: So good for your, good for your son for, for, for doing that.

I'm jealous of him. I,

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, no,

Jay Myers: that when I was that age.

Matt Edmundson: yeah, but I- the world's a smaller place now, isn't it? It's all possible now.

Jay Myers: Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: But yeah, I g- I, I, I think watching him, I'm like, "We definitely need to push into Instagram and social," especially now social's more about search. Um,

we're finding that's working quite well. So yeah, we're, we're s- I think the brands that do social well in terms of consistency and have some kind of voice on there, they're, they're doing really well.

The trouble with that, though, here's the big problem I think with that, is they become quite hard to sell

Jay Myers: Hmm

Matt Edmundson: because they're based around a founder, right? And it's not a bad thing, and I think, I think this is part of the 90-day challenge is like building a, a sort of a brand, a brand following if you like, building your [00:26:00] personal brand.

What does that mean? What does that look like? I think that's actually something founders should do, or at least that's the experiment. Should they do it? We're gonna find out, right? It, it's the big thing. But the... There are issues with that that you then have to think through. So which is why we did the podcast the way we've done it.

The podcast is not just me. The podcast is a bunch of people. That actually is good, but if that business is ever sold, it's not dependent on me doing that podcast all the time

Jay Myers: Yeah. I had, I had this on my list of things I wanted to ask you about. Um, I'm gonna jump, jump to it 'cause I had a couple questions before. But you, you've been vocal about this and your whole pitch is, is, uh, building a business worth wanting, right? That's the, the kind of the, the slogan. So I often see, and I, I've fallen into this trap in my life where founders accidentally build a job that they build around themself.

Um, maybe they end up not even liking the job, but they've created this job that they're relying to. So what is the difference [00:27:00] between a business worth someone wants and is investible or appealing to someone acquiring it versus building something that's a job you're stuck to?

Matt Edmundson: Well, that, it's-- I think every business that starts in effect is the job, right? It just-- Because you've gotta put in the hours. You, but you... I think you, as you grow your business and as your, as your understanding of it changes... And again, Jay, you'll know this, it's like how do I grow my business where I'm not the bottleneck, where I'm not the sort of the pivot, the linchpin behind everything?

And the more I can not be that, the more valuable the business is to somebody. Because

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: if I was to sell this company here, the big question is, would it collapse if Matt wasn't involved, right? And if the answer to that question is no, then I've got a business that's got high value. Now, there are gonna be some things that if, you know, God forbid I, I drop dead tomorrow, would it have an [00:28:00] impact on the business?

Yes, it would, because I'm a bit of a personality, and I get that. But I think we have enough structure and ideas in place that I'm no longer the linchpin in everything, and I think that's the critical aspect of it. And that's how you... The big question is always if I didn't turn up to this doing what I do for the next three months, what would happen to that business?

And if there are bad things that would happen, you've got to ask yourself, "Is it worth me putting something into that so that I could go away for three months if I wanted to?" You might not want to, and that's totally fine. It might, it might not be the time for you. But if you're wanting to build more of a business rather than a really nice job, I think that's the route you have to go down

Jay Myers: Do you know who Mike Michalowicz is? He's, um, he's an author. He's written a lot of books, I think nine. I had him on the podcast recently. One of his... He's got-- His bestseller is called Profit First. It's all

Matt Edmundson: I don't. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I do know who Mike is. Yeah, and I've met the [00:29:00] Profits First guys here in the UK as well.

Jay Myers: Yeah. So they, they, they actually have like Profit First coaches now. They've built, they've built out a whole program around it,

Matt Edmundson: We do profit first accounting in our companies.

Jay Myers: Oh, amazing.

Amazing. He, he, uh, it's a, it's a great episode. I'd encourage, of course, any- I'll put a link in the show notes to it. It's a few episodes back. But one of the things he does at his company, and he now, I think he kinda talks about it in one of his recent books, but it's f- like forced vacations. And they'll take...

He does it himself, where they'll tell you ahead, like, "Okay, Matt, in six months you're gonna go on a two-month vacation, and you're not gonna ha- be able to answer a phone. We're gonna change your email password, your social media account passwords, your Slack account, everything. Like, you will have zero access.

Now, start preparing, 'cause this is in six months. And the only way that someone could possibly get a hold from you would be, like, phoning the hotel or ph-" Like there is no, you have [00:30:00] no connection. Um, and he, he works with founders to get to this point, and the, sometimes they want a year to prepare, but, like, that's the goal.

And then they, they f- So at his company, he's got about 17 or 18 people at his publishing company, and they all have to do it so that everyone is able to step up. They know each other's roles, and it's not reliant on any person. 'Cause it's always easy to say in practice, but to actually do it... And, I mean, we've all had that experience where we've, like, gone away on a little bit of a trip, and someone else steps up and things are okay.

And you know what? Actually, someone did something even better than the way I'm doing it. And so it's like a forced function for that in a, in a sense.

Matt Edmundson: It's a really good idea. I-- every August I take the whole month off.

Jay Myers: Amazing. And then can you disconnect too? Like

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. And I, I, I try and write actually is what I do in August. And some years actually, if I'm, if I'm really well planned, I actually stop mid-middle of July and then come back, um, September. [00:31:00] And what you find is, one, not only do I, I feel rested and re-envisaged, visioned kind of thing for what's going on, but the team have had the ability to make decisions that they wouldn't necessarily have been able to make whilst I was there.

And so there's a kind of flourishing which comes from them with the founder not being present that's actually quite lovely to see.

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm

Matt Edmundson: So yeah, I'm, I'm a big fan of it. You know, taking a sort of four to six weeks sabbatical every year has been life-giving. I've done it every year, probably for the last five or six years.

Um, and if you could get to the stage to do that, I highly recommend it

Jay Myers: I, I think it's weird because as a founder, your mindset is, is work harder. You know, like, and, and a lot of times, like, you love work. Like I, I genuinely love my job. Like it's not... It doesn't feel like... Like I wake up in the morning, I'm excited, and the whole family goes to bed and I'm staying up, and it's not because I have to.

I, I genuinely love it. But I think I have rarely [00:32:00] ever had a creative idea that has moved the company forward at my desk.

Matt Edmundson: Yep.

Jay Myers: It almost always happens when I'm out for a walk, when I'm driving, when I'm in an airplane or in a hotel room, when I'm, when I'm away from it. Like it almost, like when I s- And actually sometimes I get mind blanks when I sit at my desk.

I come to the computer, I'm like, "Okay, what do I do now?" And I start clicking through tabs or opening up Slack or email. And so it's not just a sabbatical in the sense of like it's actually good for your business,

Matt Edmundson: It

Jay Myers: where a lot of the creative ideas come

Matt Edmundson: Well, every six weeks, um, twice a term or semester as you'd call it, but every six weeks, um, I take two or three days off and I'll go walk in the hills, I'll go sit by a lake. I'll, I'll just get out with that very idea. Um, once a week, I-- every Wednesday morning, I leave the house early. It's about a 90-minute walk from my [00:33:00] house to the warehouse.

If you walk, it's 90 minutes. And there's actually a route that I've found that goes through some sort of old golf courses and, um, you know, forests and stuff like that here in, here in Liverpool, and it's, it's, it's a city thing, but it's... Anyway, it's a nice route and it's a long route. Do it every week. And the best ideas come from those Wednesday morning walks, right?

The six-week sort of two-day, three-day mini break. It's like you say, the best-- Again, something I learned from Andy, one of my old business partners, he said the best advice, best ideas I've ever had have been while I've been on a surfboard

Jay Myers: Yeah. You know, it's funny, m- for me it's, it's a, it's a treadmill and at, at the gym I find something, I don't know, your blood's moving maybe, I don't know, you're breathing more. But it's like I just get hit with ideas and I, and I find myself, like I'll get off the treadmill and like, "Okay, I gotta write this down.

Oh, I gotta write this down." And I spend half the time at the gym like making notes on things, and then people look. I'm like, I'm not on social media. I'm like writing down ideas that I have had. So yeah. And [00:34:00] I've, I've heard some people say they actually schedule thinking time, which is interesting. I've had people tell me they like actually block time in their calendar each day to, to just either sit in a chair or go for a walk.

But it's, you know, a break in the day. It's, it's, it's really important.

Matt Edmundson: It is. I think starting the day off right is important. And again, I get that it's... Now my kids are a different life stage to yours, and I think you go through seasons in life where certain things are possible.

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: But now I get up, the first hour, hour and a half of the day I'm just sitting, reading. Some people like to meditate or pray or whatever it is.

I th- And then I hit the gym. I'm like, start the day right every day. It's, it does wonders for your mental health,

Jay Myers: Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: And, and I think it's so important. I get that it's not possible if you've got a three-year-old, you know, running around creating mayhem and chaos. But, um, whatever works. Used to be when we had young kids, I would drive home from the office and I would just sit outside in the car for 20 [00:35:00] minutes before, before going into the

Jay Myers: I've been there,

Matt Edmundson: 'cause I needed that bridge between work and, and the, and, and knowing full well as soon as I walked, walked through that door, three young kids, it was just gonna be mayhem.

So yeah, whatever works. You-- I think you've gotta find the space

Jay Myers: Yeah, totally. Okay, so I wanna ask about some of the businesses you've acquired, 'cause there's, you know, a lot of brands are listening, are maybe hoping to sell their business one day. Even if they're not, I think it, it's always important to build a business that, like you said, business that people want.

And so what are, what are some of the things that you look for? You said you're in the middle of two potential acquisitions right now.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah

Jay Myers: How... Tell me how you, what you look for in a business. How do you find these businesses? And then I'd love to dig a little bit into, like, important metrics that you look at, and how do you, how do you know a business is worth buying, makes wanting, and one that's not

Matt Edmundson: It's a really interesting question, and full [00:36:00] disclosure, when we acquire businesses, I don't really pay for them, um, which sounds a bit counterintuitive, right? So we tend to do well, and again, this is just from our discovery, we do well with businesses between half a million and three million turnover, right?

So that's kinda where they are. They're probably... Yeah. Annual revenue, yeah, yeah. And they're, they're, they're more than likely selling small repeatable products like supplements, beauty products, you know. These are the industries we know quite well. We've looked at companies that sell tents, for example.

They're bigger than what we know, but the gift company we acquired last year, it was your traditional sort of mom and pops kinda store really. They... Beautiful husband and wife running this sh- this store, and they'd grown it, and they'd hit the ceiling. And you must see it actually quite a lot, Jay, but you...

They, there's sort of, there's a ceiling that people hit when there's one or two of them, and they get to an end of their knowledge, and so then they go, "Right, so what we need now is an [00:37:00] agency to help us with paid media, and we can

scale."

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: they go spend four grand a month with a agency. They lose 20 grand on ads, and they're, they're nowhere.

And so they quickly pull it because obviously every penny matters, and they're like, "Well, that doesn't work for us," so then they feel stuck. And we find actually with those brands we can do really well. Um, so with the gift company, we took a, um, part of the company. We brought value in other ways, so we moved their whole operation into our warehouse.

Um, all our team here do all the fulfillment, so all the picking, all the packing. Our web team took over the website. Our ads guys took over all the ads. And so what happens is you bring a business in, um, and you plug it into a bigger machine with the idea that it can scale and grow. And for the original founders, they...

It means they're, they're then hands-off. So they still own some equity in the business.

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: in fact, we're getting a beer I think in a week or two's time, um, which is [00:38:00] always a nice way to catch up. Um, but yeah, we, we tend to do really well with that, if that makes sense.

Jay Myers: Ma- makes total sense. So are you... You're a little bit, a little bit different than, than traditional investors. Like, you're not necessarily looking for a certain growth trajectory and certain, you know, margin ratios and that if the company actually is a little bit struggling, that's actually a good opportunity for you.

Not, not s- Like they, they've, they've found a product market fit. They're not a $100 million brand, but they're, they're something, and now with your services, you could actually grow them more. Like, so it's a little bit of a different strategy than like a private equity firm

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah.

Jay Myers: brands. Yeah. Okay.

Matt Edmundson: Very much so. Yeah. We're definitely not a, a buying equity kind of a company. We definitely look for ways to invest in terms of value. We've g- and all... So the, the figure you mentioned at the start, the 75 million, which is probably closer to [00:39:00] 100 now. I really should add it up, if I'm honest with you.

You get to a point where you don't really care. But I would say the vast majority of the income we've created has been with companies where we've had an equity stake that we didn't necessarily buy, but we bought value in other ways,

Jay Myers: Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: if that makes sense. So

Jay Myers: Makes, makes ton

Matt Edmundson: every single one of those, we took over those companies, we ran their companies, we moved it into our warehouse, we did the marketing, and so on and so forth, and it's just something that's worked super well for us over the years

Jay Myers: What's the biggest lever that you pull? Like, what, what do most brands in that range struggle with or what, like the biggest opportunity to, to grow some of these brands?

Matt Edmundson: Uh, that's a really interesting question. Let me just think through the compa- I would say the one thing that I think we're really good at, um, that's a bit of false humility. I think we're really good at a lot of things, but one of the things I think we're really good at, um,

Jay Myers: Brits are really good at [00:40:00] that humility that that's the

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah. We're good at talking ourselves down in a funny kind of way. would say we're, we're really good at building relationship with the customer, and as a result, our repeat purchase rates are always like 20, 30, 40% above industry averages, right? And so we get great results there. So with The Gift Company, one of the things that we've learned from that actually is when people buy gifts, it tends to be a one-off.

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: and so when we looked at their sales data, like 80, 90% of their business came from first customer acquisition.

And you're like, Well, that's an interesting thing. Can we change that?" Um, and that's where a lot of our thinking has gone, is not how do I go get more first time customers because, well, whatever, it's not my...

I'm not interested in throwing another 20 grand into ads. But how can I get the [00:41:00] 100,000 customers to go from a 1.1 purchase rate to a 1.4 or a 1.5 or a 1.6? Um, if I can do that, um, then actually we win quite a lot. And so, which is why I always love talking to you, you know, and having you on the show. We talk about memberships and subscriptions and all the crazy ideas that you've got, and all of those things I love because it's all about taking a single product and, and creating value multiple times in a way that promotes longevity, and I think that I love

Jay Myers: It's so val- the thing I, why I'm passionate about that is I see the long-term impact it makes on a brand too. And I know how hard people work, and I know how hard it is building a brand. And if you can build something where you have a high rePete purchase rate versus one that's don't, like you, you can, you can spend the same amount of [00:42:00] ad money, you can spend the same amount of time on all your efforts, but if you structure it in a way that is healthy for rePete and one that isn't, you've built a business worth triple or quadruple what it is

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, you have.

Jay Myers: if one-time orders.

And so you just better fruits for your labor too, right? And

Matt Edmundson: Unbelievably so. And this is because we buy- we sort of acquire companies, and at the moment we're building an e-com group, but we're also like, we, we do sell individual companies off when people wanna come in and buy them. And I can take the same company, right? Keep the turnover, the sales revenue exactly the same.

It turns over a million bucks a year. I don't do anything to increase that turnover, but the... If I take that million turnover, instead of it being one-time purchase, um, 50% of that turnover is on subscription or membership,

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm

Matt Edmundson: then instead of getting a three times multiple, I'll probably get an eight or nine times multiple selling that business, right?

Same, same, everything's the same [00:43:00] apart from that one tiny factor, and I think this is partly why subscription businesses caught on the way they did, was because they,

Jay Myers: Oh, totally

Matt Edmundson: of high perceived value. But it's really fascinating how it works

Jay Myers: Did we-- did I ever tell you about our, our newest launch? I know I reached out to you. I can't remember. It was like a month... Yeah, we did. We met about... Okay, yeah, yeah.

Matt Edmundson: yeah, yeah, RePete. He came onto the podcast and told everyone

Jay Myers: We did. That's right. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, never mind. how busy I... My, my mind is all over the place these days, but yeah, I-- like this is, this is, this is my, my passion in life is...

And I think, I think it's more important now than ever, like for, for brands because, like, you're probably seeing this with ad spend. Like you're probably spending double what you did five years ago to acquire customers. I don't know what you're seeing, but most of the brands we're working with, their search traffic is down like close to 50%.

Like people... Actually, I saw a report recently, Google said that 61% of searches now don't end up in a click. So [00:44:00] it's the AI overview. You get the phone number without a click, you get the address without a click, you get the hours of operations, you get the reviews, you get the pictures. Like you almost never have to leave Google's search results page.

Matt Edmundson: that's so true

Jay Myers: So, so, so people aren't ending up on your site. And then now with agentic commerce kind of here-ish, like it's still early, but it's,

Matt Edmundson: Mm-hmm.

Jay Myers: it's, here. People are gonna just be asking ChatGPT what's... like for this gift company, like what's a great gift for my, my mother for Mother's Day? And whatever it recommends, you can buy within your AI tool.

Like the s- the... When you actually get a customer, like it's so expensive, it's harder to get them to your site, and if you're not found in AI, like, man, when you get one, like if you're not doing everything you can to nurture them, to get... build a relationship with them, and to get them coming back, like I don't, I don't...

If brands aren't doing that right now, I really don't know if you can build a healthy business of [00:45:00] like just paying to acquire one-time customers right now. Like it's so hard

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, it is. I think there are some outliers, but the trouble is y- there are these outlier companies that then go onto YouTube and go, "This is how, you know, you build a million-dollar business, and just buy my $400 course and I'll tell you how to do it," kind of a thing. And actually it's, it's an outlier.

It's, it's the, it's not a, it's not actually repeatable

Jay Myers: Correct. Yeah. What are the

Matt Edmundson: So

Jay Myers: places you're placing bets in the next two to three years? The people wanna know, Matt

Matt Edmundson: Uh, where are my place in bets?

Jay Myers: I like in, in the brands that you're matching, what are you betting on? Like, are you going, are you going all in on this podcasting strategy? Are you betting big on TikTok? Are you, are you...

I, I talked to some people that are like, blogs are back because agentic and AO actually, I think that's a big thing that you're, you're working on. But where, where's your big bets for the next couple years?

Matt Edmundson: So the, the places where we're spending the most [00:46:00] money outside of what we normally do. So there's the foundation that we have that we know our systems work and our framework works really well. So what are we building on top of that?

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: AI,

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: obviously, because I think AI is just... It is so fascinating right now what you can do with AI

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: and what you probably shouldn't do with AI actually as well.

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: Sorry, I interrupted you, G.

Jay Myers: No, I was gonna say, do you mean AI in the sense of getting found through AI or using AI on your... Both.

Matt Edmundson: So I, I think there are six areas at the moment. If you want organic traffic, you have to look at six areas, right? Um, AI search, obviously. You've got to look at traditional technical SEO. You've got to look at the content, um, the blogs. The fourth area is YouTube, 'cause by far it's-- I mean, it still has a massive impact, and YouTube is feeding AI.

Jay Myers: 100%.

Matt Edmundson: So you, you've got to look at that. [00:47:00] Fifth area is social SEO. So you see now a lot of people on Instagram, again, we've noticed this on Zach's account. A lot of people in hooks are now writing key phrases. I think it's 61% of Gen Zeds or Gen Z millennials are searching on Instagram versus Google, and so it's now at parity in many ways.

It's really-- it's quite fascinating. So social search or social SEO and digital PR,

Jay Myers: That's so interesting.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah

Jay Myers: actually have not paid... I do that. I do search Instagram for, for products or for different things 'cause I wanna see people that have it and actually see it. I have not considered the importance of the search, I mean, other than hashtags and... But there is actually a whole world of strategy behind that as well.

Matt Edmundson: It's a big deal right now, and I think it's one of those things you, you can take advantage of it

Jay Myers: Yeah, it's early

Matt Edmundson: I think it's early and I think Instagram [00:48:00] especially has cottoned onto it. TikTok to some extent

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: But I think, yeah, the, the sort of the social SEO I think is, is, is a good thing to get into

Jay Myers: Well, I've always heavily considered it and do it for YouTube search results, 'cause that's very... I, I, I see YouTube search, uh, but just for some reason Instagram and, and like I also TikTok would be the same thing too, like you'd, um, leaning into the search on there. 'Cause but Google doesn't see those posts, right?

On- Like this is only within the Instagram search.

Matt Edmundson: As far as I know,

Jay Myers: Yeah. I think Google can see... Obviously Google can see the YouTube. I mean, that's the main one. They, they, they try to surface YouTube ones.

Matt Edmundson: yeah. Yeah

Jay Myers: But yeah, I don't think they see it unless they're logged in, but once within the account, yeah. But that's interesting that that percentage of that younger generation is going there

Matt Edmundson: Oh, it's phenomenal now. So if you think the search engine was Google, then it became Google and YouTube, right? The second biggest [00:49:00] search engine in the world, and now they're on parity. Google, YouTube, and social, they're all on parity in terms of search

Jay Myers: Yeah. Well, and then AI is, I guess, its own version of search, but it's a, it's a

Matt Edmundson: It is, and it is, and I think AI search is the Wild West right now. And again, we get people contacting us all the time, "We can help you with AI search. We've killed it with this brand." And you're just like, "There's no way, because there's no written rules right now." There are things which we know that seem to be working, but next week you just don't know.

So one week everybody's like, "You need to be on Reddit, man." And then the next week's like, "Reddit's not working. You need to be over here." And you're just like, "I can't keep up," right? So do the foundations well, do the basics well, um, and AI will definitely start to recommend you. And I think it's one of the things you should be tracking right now, actually

Jay Myers: What are you doing with your brands for-- even though it's early and like I feel the same way. I feel like it's a lot of guessing, and we're doing stuff at Bold that I don't know if it works or not, but we're doing it. Like we, we have a link at the bottom of our website that says... I think it literally says, [00:50:00] "Hey, AI, this is for you."

And it's, it's a very small link in the footer, and when you click it, it opens up a page that has all the details about our company. So like the founders, the founders' history, how it was built, what ex- our exact positioning. 'Cause you know how sometimes you, you ask ChatGPT about your own company, and it gets everything wrong?

And so we're like, "Well, what if we put a page on our website?" I heard someone that did it, and so we, we copied the idea. And actually, after a couple weeks, we noticed that AI was actually picking it up, and the details that were in there were being used in the answers of AI. And so like that was just a total test.

I have no idea. It might not be that way in a couple weeks, but we're right now just let's just try it, try everything. What are some of the things that you're trying with your brands?

Matt Edmundson: Well, we're the same as you. So one of the things that we've tried that works quite well at the moment is the LLMS.txt file or the .TXT file. So

Jay Myers: Yeah. And they just, they, I think they just announced [00:51:00] that now that's an official part of the Lighthouse score, I think literally this week. Uh, 'cause up in... It wasn't, it wasn't officially,

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was one of those unofficial things. Yeah,

Jay Myers: unofficially, but now I, I think just as of literally two days ago, it, it is now official.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. So that we know works,

Jay Myers: Yeah

Matt Edmundson: and e- especially if it's now become official. We, we've had some good trial with that. Other things that we've done, making sure schema is right on the website so AI understands what the different aspects of the w- site are.

I mean, you need good s- uh, you need that for Google anyway, but actually it really helps AI. And the other thing, this is one of the things that we've noticed with the podcast, one of the reasons why I think digital PR is interesting, like one of the things you could do, if you don't already do it, is understand the niche space that you got, that you're in.

So let's say you sell, I don't know, expensive chocolates, right? And y- and you... If you do, hit me up, send me some samples. But if you, if you sell chocolates into a, a space, I [00:52:00] would go and find 500 or 600 podcasts that are in that space that talk to those customers, and then I would put myself out and try and get on as many podcasts as I possibly could, right?

Now, does that do anything for your business? Maybe, probably not. I mean, you, you know as well as I do, podcasting's quite an interesting thing to try and get business out of, right? You've gotta be in it for the long haul. So but what it does do is it tells the internet ab- that you're getting more and more brand mentions.

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: so one of the stats w- we now understand with AI is brand recognition or the amount of times your brand is put out there by other people is way more important than backlinks,

right?

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: so by going on the podcast, you're creating brand awareness. By creating brand awareness, you're more likely to be referred by AI.

The other thing that we've done actually is we've got a Claude skill we've developed here, which once a week just goes to all the AI models and puts in like a, a bunch of [00:53:00] different search terms and monitors the results and see if AI is referring us for any of those things

Jay Myers: Hmm. Interesting.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah

Jay Myers: It's truly like the accurate way of knowing if something is relevant. Like, uh, uh, if, if you think about humans, like what's everyone talking about? If everyone's talking about a certain restaurant, it's likely if I s- if I wanna say, "What's the best steakhouse to go in New York?"

Matt Edmundson: Hmm.

Jay Myers: if I ask people, "Well, everyone's talking about this one."

Everyone, like that's the way that-- So with AI, just looking at how many times it's mentioned, it's actually a very accurate reflection of if it's like-- 'Cause like link, links are a close proxy, but still there's a lot of link trading and a lot of other strategies. But a mention is, is, uh, pretty as accurate as it gets,

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, it is.

Jay Myers: and it's hard to-- You can't fake it.

Like it's...

Matt Edmundson: No, no, you can't. It's really, really important and I, I think those things you don't see results [00:54:00] tomorrow, but you'll see results in a month or two's time, you know? And so, yeah, it's really... It's exciting, but it, it does change a lot. But I think if you start off with that llms.text TXT file, and if you don't know what that is, just Google it.

Just go to LLM, large language model s.txt, and it will come up, and it will tell you exactly what to do

Jay Myers: Okay, last question before I let you go, 'cause I know we're, we're getting close to our time here, but what's the, what's the biggest mistake you're seeing brands making in e-commerce right now that you think they're gonna regret in 24 months? Not 10 years, but in 24 months that people are doing right now

Matt Edmundson: The two... I'll give you two that I see a lot of. Number one is the over-reliance on ads for customer generation.

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm

Matt Edmundson: I think this is problematic because ads are getting more expensive and less and less people are going to the places where the ads are.

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: And so you've got a dwindling pool, but the asset is getting more expensive, and I think you've got to start thinking [00:55:00] beyond Google Ads and Meta Ads.

That's not to say that they're not gonna work, but whilst they're working, you've got to build another system over here to, to go and get leads from.

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: That would be one thing. And the second thing, I think... Have you heard the phrase "AI slop"?

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: it's this idea that there's no... If you go to ChatGPT or Claude, I prefer Claude, it's way better than ChatGPT, but if you...

Whatever your AI of choice is, if I just go to it and say, "Write me a blog post about, um, why I should eat chocolate," it's gonna just come up with some really generic nonsense,

Jay Myers: Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: The trouble is people then take that and they put that on their website, or if they sell the chocolate they... that they're buying in, they'll go and take that product description from the manufacturer and put that on the website.

They'll put the same image on their website everybody else is using, and it just becomes beige,

Jay Myers: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: There's a phrase, "AI slop," you know? It's just like, it looks like [00:56:00] everything else, it sounds like everything else, it feels like everything else, and there's no brand personality. There's no brand story, and I think that is...

that's a real shame

Jay Myers: And it's also detectable as AI-produced, which-- So I'll, I'll... Something I learned, I'll throw this in here for listeners. There's a bunch of tools. Grammarly has a good one. If you just Google AI detection tools, there's, there's a bunch out there, and you can put a blog post in, your product pages, anything you want, and it detects if it's AI-generated or not.

And even if you try to be creative with your prompt, if it's like, "Write me a blog post or product descriptions about this, make it super fluffy, sound like a surfer dude who's confused," I don't know, whatever. Like give it some weird prompt. Still, it still picks it up as AI-detected. But the one-- Like, I like to use AI to help in a lot of things I do, and so I'm, I'm a, I'm kind of like the hybrid approach.

And something I have found that works really well [00:57:00] is, like this podcast that we're recording right now, this is original content, right? So we're... Your ideas, my ideas, we're sharing them. If I take this transcript and then I go to Claude and I give it some guidance and work with it to create a blog post from it, and then I take that blog post and I run it through the AI detection software, it almost never says it's AI-detected 'cause it's original content.

Matt Edmundson: Uh-huh.

Jay Myers: But AI is helping clean it up and format it. It's not producing it. And so what I've told a few brands recently that's worked really well is like, if you wanna write a blog post, and yes, I get it, you're busy, y- and you don't have time. What I do is I have a little DJI mic, and when I drop my daughter off at school, I clip it on my hat and I just start talking.

And if I have some idea of it's like something I wanna blog about, I'll literally just start sharing my ideas. I'm like, "Okay, I've been, I've been thinking about this thing, and there's three things I think that are wrong with mega menus right now that are hurting brands," and [00:58:00] uh, this, this, whatever.

Whatever the thing is. And I'll just record it, and then I'll download it when I get home, transcribe it, throw it in Descript or whatever tool you use, and then create the blog post from that. And then if you do that, it's never... doesn't, it never shows as AI-generated when you run it through all the tools.

And I'm pretty sure Google penalizes ones that are, like, n- ninety percent above AI generation. Like all of my blog posts on the Shopify 1% website, they're written b-by AI, but they're original

Matt Edmundson: Yeah

Jay Myers: content. I'll be open, transparent about that. But if you take any of those and copy and paste them into AI detection software, they'll be less than one percent.

Um, so just little throw, throw that in there as a,

Matt Edmundson: No, it's really cool. Uh, the only thing I'd do differently is video it as well as just record the audio, 'cause then you've got Instagram Reels. And in fact, I probably would just... We have, um... I don't know if you do this, Jay, but again, just to show you how easy it is now. [00:59:00] I take the podcast episode, so the podcast you came on, right?

That whole

Jay Myers: Handwrytten

Matt Edmundson: I give that file to Claude. So Claude then takes it off me, it goes away, it will transcribe it, it'll clean up the transcript, it will understand how to write the title, it will understand how to generate the thumbnail, and it will create the blog post. I then get the blog post and I edit it.

Now, the way I edit that blog post is I read it out loud,

Jay Myers: Yeah, that's good

Matt Edmundson: because that's where you find, "I wouldn't say that." And so I, I read it out aloud and I give Claude that transcript of me reading it out aloud and go, "There, there are the edits." And I use... You can use Whisper Flow or I use Aquavoice to do that, and then it'll produce all the rest of the content off the basis of that edit.

And it takes

Jay Myers: Gotcha

Matt Edmundson: I guess... And it-- We have it now where Claude creates all the clips, all the social media clips, all the Instagram carousels, everything. It just does it all. Zzz. So I probably spend 20 minutes on it now

Jay Myers: You have Claude doing the video [01:00:00] clips? I actually didn't know that was possible with Claude.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, we do. We, we have it. It, it uses a, a Python library to edit the clips.

Jay Myers: Gotcha

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, but it's, it's pretty straightforward to do. Um, uh, yeah, it's really, really smart actually

Jay Myers: See, I learned something new on this. My podcast will be better because this. Well, I know we're, we're, uh, over time. You gotta run. It's late in the evening there already. I'm just starting my day. Matt, um, okay, you have an e-commerce podcast, and it's literally called the E-Commerce Podcast. So you can't, you can't...

Like, how's that for, like,

Matt Edmundson: so

Jay Myers: you rank first? Do you, do you rank first for... I guess you must, right? Like

Matt Edmundson: I think it depends on who's asking. Um, I've never been able to definitively figure out if we do. Um, but

Jay Myers: with a great name like that, I would imagine it's up there. But, uh, you're over 200 episodes now, I think? Plus? More?

Matt Edmundson: approaching 300 now, I think. Yeah. Yeah. It's [01:01:00] been going five years,

Jay Myers: I will encourage our, all of our listeners to also check out Matt's, Matt's show.

I'll put a link in the comic, comments. Where is, if anyone... Where are you active on social media, and if anyone wants to learn more about you and what you're doing, where would you like to direct people?

Matt Edmundson: Uh, just follow me on LinkedIn, Matt Edmundson, or come follow me on Matt Edmundson on Instagram as I do this crazy 90-day challenge trying to figure out if something makes sense or not. Yeah, that, uh, just go there or mattedmundson.com

Jay Myers: Amazing. I'll put all the links in the show notes. Matt, thank you so much for your generosity with

Matt Edmundson: Oh, no, Jay, loved it. Thanks for having me on, man. Appreciate it