Brett Curry 4:42
Yeah, it’s a it’s a great question. And so I think like the real answer is I love the game right? I enjoy first of all get bored easily. So you know like having this goal of you know, want to sell a business and have $20 million in the bank and just go sit on a beach. That that really is not my thing like I want to have that kind of money in the bank, but I don’t want to just sit on a beach. I like being in the game. I love marketing. I love advertising. I remember as a as a kid, I used to like watching infomercials and just something about persuasion and showing a cool product demo. I don’t know, it kind of lit me up on the inside as a kid. And so I’ve always loved marketing, I love good brands, good products. And so it’s just endlessly fascinating to me to look at. How do we take this, this really solid brand, communicate the message in a way that’s compelling? Deliver it in the right media. So primarily, we use you know, Google, YouTube, Amazon, how do we deliver that to accelerate growth for a brand and and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of doing that. I love teaching. I love speaking I just I like like being in the game. I like the game of business. So that’s kind of the what keeps driving me. But yeah, I’ve been doing this a while. So in the early days, I was doing actually quite a bit of traditional media. So my, in college, I kind of worked my way through college, by selling radio, so I worked for radio station. And then I was doing a lot of TV advertising. And so in the early days, I did TV, TV and radio. And then in 2004 was when I started learning like SEO and SEM. And that kind of blew my mind. I absolutely loved it. But it was kind of for me, like a couple of milestones. One, you know, when I was doing TV and radio, and I did some stuff like local car dealerships and stuff like that. I remember talking to, you know, that the car dealer, the Chevy dealership owner and be like, hey, what ads are working for you right now? Like, well, we don’t really know. We know we run this ad and people come in and we run these ads, people don’t come in. But sometimes they would they would you know, ask a customer. Hey, why did you come in today? And the customer be like, Hey, I just heard you guys on the radio. Maybe like that’s funny because we don’t run the radio for like three months, right? So there’s, there’s all this like, hey, we know that messages important when it comes to traditional media, but kind of hard to track some of it right. So that’s what really attracted me to online marketing in the first place was okay, we can see what keywords people are typing, and then we can see what they click on. And then we can see what they do after they click and then we can see if they buy, of course, you know, some of that’s going away, which I’m sure they will talk about today is probably not as bad as most people think. So that was a big deal for me. And really, because I did a lot of TV in the past. I was always fascinated early on with YouTube and and really wanted to learn like, hey, what makes YouTube tick I was one of like, I remember watching Gary Vee Wine Library TV back when it was like the original show. And back when he was using a flip camera, not a flip phone. But a flip camera. If you’re if you’re listening, and you know what that is that hats off to you, you’re probably an OG as well. But I remember watching that and just being fascinated by YouTube. I didn’t I didn’t really see how YouTube would work for my clients. And then I was at a I was at a Google Google Live event. It was in New York City. And they they announced this new thing called TrueView for action where you could run YouTube ads, but bid to hit a target CPA and I thought this is perfect because all my clients were direct response, you know, they want to generate customers at a at a designated cost per acquisition or a CAC goal. So in TrueView, for action came out, I was like, Man, this is the blending of all my worlds, right? Because Youtube has like some sem components to it. There’s a keyword and a search component to it. It’s got video, it actually functions kind of like TV. So it’s got like TV ads, and then and then we can now bid to get performance then I was like all excited. So we’re one of the early agencies to run YouTube ads for ecommerce from a direct conversion standpoint. And now we’re for agencies our size, we’re team of about 50. We’re one of the top spenders on YouTube ads for ecommerce, which is pretty exciting.
Joshua Chin 8:44
That that’s really interesting. Now let’s unpack that what drove you to digital media in the first place with attribution is now I suppose in a threat, it’s it’s a it’s at risk of going away. But not really. With cookies becoming a thing of the past potentially, maybe privacy and all that stuff. Google is all mean
Brett Curry 9:11
Google keeps kicking the can down the road right like Hayward’s cookies are going away in 2022. Well, maybe by the end of 2023.
Joshua Chin 9:17
Yeah. What’s happening there? Because you work with Google very closely.
Brett Curry 9:21
Yeah, we do we do. And so a couple of things one yes. It is funny like the thing that attracted me to digital marketer in the first place was you can track this stuff you like you know what works and what doesn’t. And that’s the other thing that’s always interested me about advertising is like, why does this headline work 10 times better than that headline or why does this spokesperson in a video convert like crazy but that spokesperson doesn’t write like Priceline you know when they when they brought in William Shatner to do their videos it just things just exploded like us resonated with people. So that’s an endlessly fascinating to me. So yeah, attribution was was key in getting me into digital marketing. Now. It’s like, the bane of my existence. Not really, actually. There was a period of time when I was like angry Tim Cook from Apple, you know, Apple, why are you ruining a good thing, man, this is not going to be better for users. But really, I’ve kind of not maybe not come full circle, but realize that it’s not gonna be as bad as we think and and good creative will still win the day. And we’ll always be able to track enough data to be able to make our decisions better, right. And if we go back to the early days, like the the founding the greats in marketing, you know that we’re using mailing coupons and stuff from their newspaper ads or magazine ads, like we’re so far advanced to that. And so we’ll always have more data to work with, and then they did long ago. So a couple things. One, I think it’s important remember when it comes to cookies in Google, and kind of how that’s functioning, is that first party cookies are not going away, right? It’s just third party cookies. So a quick explanation. I’m not a programmer, I’m just a marketing nerd. But first party cookies. You know, that’s where when you go to a website that you visited before, you know, it saves your username and your password, right, that’s like that’s stored, that’s between you and that in that merchant, first party cookies make things better for users. So So no one is wanting those to go away. It’s third party cookies, where Google’s coming in and tracking your behavior on other websites that are not Google. So what’s interesting, though, is that Google has a lot of first party data, right? Think about the billions of searches that happen on a daily basis on Google, that’s Google’s data you’re searching on their website. So they they have access still, to that information, first party data. So a lot of the ways we target and build audiences on Google, those aren’t fully going away. Now Google’s doing some things to create more, like less transparency, right, where you can’t individually track people, but they’re still gonna be able to know like, Hey, Josh is looking for this kind of sneakers, right. And so because he’s just searched for on Google, which our sites are now we can show relevant ads to him so that I don’t see that going away. I think some of the ways we we see conversions on our end, will go away, or will shift a little bit. But again, it kind of goes back to first party data, gotta gotta have first party data. So I think one of the things like we were all depressed, and then be dramatic, but we were depressed as agency, like, you know why I was 14. So, so terrible. But really, I think in some ways, like this has created more of a need for good agencies, like it’s created an iOS 15. With emails, it’s created more of a need for Chronos, for your agency for people to say, hey, help us with this. It’s probably more of a need for people on the YouTube and Google side to say, hey, help us unpack this. It’s going to spring up a market of third party attribution tools and things like that, which which will be useful. So there’s solutions. It’s not all doom and gloom, it’s going to be a okay. But, but yeah, it is interesting that what got me into digital marketing is now like, the most difficult thing that I’m doing
Joshua Chin 12:46
it No, as a really good thing, though. And so for, for newcomers, to the, to the ecommerce space, whether it be legacy retailers coming into b2c, or just new brands coming onto the scene, I’ve just had a conversation with a buddy of mine who runs a really successful electronics, direct to consumer company in Singapore. And he felt that and his his game is all direct response. It’s pure D to C. And he runs Facebook ads primarily. And he feels that for a new current do exactly what he’s done. When he’s when he first started, like four or five years ago. It’s incredibly difficult to succeed, just because of how tough it is, in terms of the competition that you see on on these platforms, and also how difficult it is to find the right level of attribution. So is there a, you know, on one hand, existing brands and successful brands have an edge in terms of access that they have, to agencies to information and to prior data points, versus a newcomer to the space? Is there a deeper or wider gap between the two now?
Brett Curry 14:14
Yeah, it’s it’s a really interesting question. So I mean, we’re primarily as an agency working with with brands that already have some traction, you know, that are already selling and succeeding, and a couple million in revenue, at least usually in more. So that’s where I spend most of my time. Yeah, but we’re still talking to in fact, I was just consulting with a haircare product brand, earlier today and kind of unpacking a YouTube strategy. And they just started in 2019. And they’re projected to do between seven and 8 million in 2022. And so it’s like, Hey, you you can reach that kind of scale even now. I do think in some ways, it’s it’s more difficult, right? Because there is more competition, right? And Facebook isn’t as easy now as it used to be. I’m not a Facebook guy, and I don’t run Facebook. Look, I can’t speak to it like an expert like I can’t on on YouTube, but we, you know, follow Facebook, obviously. But it’s not as easy on Facebook to scale like you once could. Right? And so, yeah, I think the barrier to entry is a little bit harder. So if you already have assets that convert, right, you got good video assets, you’ve got user generated content. And before and after pictures and testimonial videos and things like that. And it’s already working for you. That gives you a leg up for sure. If you’ve already got audiences, you’ve got email lists, you can build look alike audiences are similar to audiences with that gives you a leg up for sure. So yeah, I think it would be more intimidating to start now in the post iOS 14 and 15. World than it would have been to start before that. But I mean, you know, I guess what was the old saying, like, the best time to have started was five years ago, but the second best time is now right. So I still would be very bullish. If you’ve got a great product, you can still succeed today, you know, and I think that one of my one of my favorite quotes, it’s a Jim Rohn, quote, he said, Really, three keys to success in business writes, have something good to say. So good product, good offering, say it well. So really good marketing, delivering in a clear, compelling, concise way, and then say it often so having the right media strategy. And that’s still possible to do those things, even on a limited budget. And even with attribution where it is right now.
Joshua Chin 16:25
They say something well, and to say something consistently, that speaks to an audience. I guess that’s where creatives come in. And we talked a little bit about this before we hit record. But what type of creatives are working on face? unser? on YouTube? What’s what’s not? And what do you foresee for the next couple of years?
Brett Curry 16:47
Yeah, so it’s really interesting. It’s kind of hard to say exactly where things are going. Although I’ll pontificate on that in just a little bit. Hopefully, that’ll be that’ll be helpful. What’s interesting is, you know, what works on YouTube is quite different than what works on Facebook or TikTok or Instagram reels. And right now, the closest correlation. The closest comparison for YouTube ads would be television ads, and and specifically what we do, it’s like short form infomercials, right, those one and a half to maybe three minute short form infomercials. That’s what that’s the most similar thing to YouTube ads. So that the type of YouTube ads we’re running, they’re the pre roll in stream ads that are skippable after five seconds. So you’re forced first five seconds, and you skip after that. So what we’re finding what works best, there is something that says enough to make someone want to click and take the next step. But to do that, you have to hook them in the first five seconds and really get their interest. And you have to hook the right people to stay around. And it’ll be kind of this convincing Product Demo, right? Where they see the product in action, before and after See, see it working, that type of thing that makes them want to stick around, usually need some social proof to kind of let some of the claims you’re making and to let that demo really sink in and be believed, then you gotta have a really clear call to action that there’s there’s other things we can impact if we want to. But like having that that compelling video is super important. And one of the things that the Google said, and this is from a few years ago that success on YouTube is 85%. Creative, right? And the rest is media. I don’t know exactly how they calculated that, but I would not disagree with it. And I think now creative is even more important because as bidding algorithms maybe lose a little bit of their ability to key in on certain conversion actions, the ability just to run a soso ad and let the algorithm kind of do all the heavy lifting, that’s going to be going away a little bit, right. So now you’ve really got to nail that that creative. And so, you know, one of the things we’re seeing and and I’m trying to follow TikTok as closely as that as I can. And of course, Facebook and Instagram, I know that the trend is shorter videos. We’re seeing YouTube shorts, and I’m watching that some so I think there probably is going to be a play for shorter videos on YouTube. But But right now, we’re really seeing like 45 seconds to two and a half minutes in terms of the length of the video. Those are working best for conversions, right? Of course, you’ve got to say things well, it’s got to be interesting and all of that. But longer videos work better than shorter videos, I’ll give you a couple of examples of deodorant brands we work with. They tested two versions of essentially the same ad. So same actor, same setting, same script, just one version was a 30 and the other was like a minute nine. And but it was really they just took the minute nine version and just edited it down to the 30. We ran those side by side. The minute nine version had 10x the conversions, then the shorter version. And now The shorter version had better view rates, it had slightly lower cost per view. But it did not convert nearly as well. And we continue to see that. And so for now, you know, still that kind of 45 second to two and a half minute video is is ideal. We did just here recently Google slash YouTube has said, Hey, any video over three minutes, we’re going to kind of charge you a tax on that I didn’t call it tax, but they said, you know, they want you to run shorter videos in three minutes. So those if you run a longer than three minute video, your CPM or your your cost per 1000 will go up there. So a theme
Joshua Chin 20:35
and I’ve seen I’ve seen ads that go on for like 30-40 minutes, they’re essentially videos that that go as a pre roll, which is super interesting fee.
Brett Curry 20:46
Super easy. Yeah. So some of those are so the costs are gonna go up for those, but they can still work, right. I remember, I think was actually last Christmas time I was hanging out, like all the kids that open presents were just bored. And I ended up watching like a 19 minute ad for Charity Water, the charity, and then I ended up donating, I put them on Yeah, you know, it was such a good video, it was 19 minutes long. It was an ad. But But yeah, so that can still work. I don’t think that’s going away completely. I just think there’s, there’s, there’s for most brands, you can say all you need to say in that first video and kind of that, you know, two and a half minutes or less, and get someone to click and take the first step in making a conversion, whether that’s a add to cart or signing up for something or whatnot. You can do that in about two and a half minutes. But But yeah, I think it’ll always be a place to some degree for those those longer form videos
Joshua Chin 21:33
Go down the funnel a little bit. Google Shopping. So traditionally, a bottom of the funnel type of a channel. Would you agree?
Brett Curry 21:44
Yeah it Yeah, Google Shopping has always been like the closer right. It’s a channel where people go to buy stuff. And and for the most part, you know, if you’re going to be searching for a product, like my wife, just she recently backed our van into a tree. She’s an excellent driver, she was distracted. We had to search for rearview mirror, right? So usually, you’re going to do something like that you’re searching for something specific. You’re gonna go to Google gonna go to Amazon, one of those two places, right? That’s usually where we’re search begins. And so Google Shopping has always been that ham, I’m searching with high buying intent. I’m not just browsing for a rearview mirror for our van for fun. Like I need one. So that’s why I’m searching. So yeah, usually lower in the funnel, kind of mid funnel or lower. But what’s interesting is that, and I love Google Shopping back in 2016. I think it was, I wrote The Ultimate Guide to Google Shopping and in partnership with Shopify, and was one of their most downloaded guides are around that time. Since just did an update on that. So I’m happy to shoot you a link. It’s it’s free note no often gate or anything. It’s posted on the Shopify website.
Joshua Chin 22:52
Yeah, write it down. For sure.
Brett Curry 22:55
Yeah, it’s it’s a great resource. So what’s interesting with Google Shopping is, you know, shoppers like the ads, right, because it’s a picture of the product, it’s the price, you can see reviews, often you see the title of the product, so compelling for shoppers high click through rate, things like that. Great for merchants, because usually the conversion rate time return on adspend is high. And of course, it’s good for Google because Google makes a ton of money. So in the past, those ads only showed up in the search results, right? You go to Google, you search for rearview mirror, or I’m into barbecuing as well. So maybe search for smoker, right this little more fun than replacing the rearview mirror on your hand, just search for a new smoker. And and you see the results. Usually there’s like eight or less kind of right there on the main search engine results page. You can also click over to the shopping results if you want to get more options there. But most people just just view right there on the on the shopping page. What’s interesting is Google’s like, Hey, how can we get more ad revenue from from shopping ads, right. And he consumers love them. Merchants love them. We love them. So let’s put them everywhere. So now you’ve got you got this thing called dynamic prospecting. And this is mostly with just smart shopping campaigns. And we need a backup we certainly can but basically what was happening now and you can see this you’ve probably experienced this on your own if you’re at let’s just use that that smoker analogy. So I’m looking for a new wood pellet smoker grill. And so I’m searching for that on Google but I don’t buy anything. And then I go to YouTube to watch a you know Kansas cheese video go cheese. I’m a cheese fan. But then I on on YouTube, I see some Google Shopping ads there for other smokers maybe not even the smokers that I’ve been looking at, but other related smokers. And so that’s part of what Google is doing is they’re saying, Hey, how can we take Google Shopping ads that worked so well? And how can we put them in other places slightly higher in the funnel, but still, you know, in places that will will drive conversions. And so shopping has largely been that JMeter bottom of funnel but But Google is looking for ways to go slightly higher in the funnel. And so now you know we used to see where Shopping campaigns would hit a real ceiling, you know, where you’re just limited by search volume. Now, because of some of these other things, you can scale Google Shopping. We have multiple clients, you know, spending several 100,000 a month on Google shopping alone. And so yeah, so it’s it’s a fin, fascinating channel to me. And so happy to answer any questions related to that.
Joshua Chin 25:20
So I think one of the biggest question marks is that I from from an outsider’s point of view, obviously, would you hit a snag, like a barrier to scaling Google Shopping? Just because of, you know, there’s only so much search volume that’s available for you to buy ads on? Or is are there workarounds to that issue?
Brett Curry 25:48
Yeah, it still exists, right? You’re still it is still primarily a query based channel, right? It’s search based and Search Driven? Yeah. And so yeah, if you’re in a product category, or not, a lot of people are searching for that product by name, then you need to do something else to drive that business. And so so we like to talk about your either kind of a demand capture business or your demand generation business, or most the time you’re somewhere in the middle. Right. But demand capture would be back back to that automotive example. Right? Yeah. Mirrors. I’m not looking for that unless I have a need. Right. Yeah. So that’s like, pretty pure demand capture where advertisers they’re just existing off of the demand that already exists. If we go to something like boom sticks, you mentioned Ezra Firestone, we work with them forever, is good friend of mine, as well. So Boomstick, it’s kind of a makeup replacement. It’s designed for women over the age of 50. It’s not that common that people are searching for makeup replacement for women over the age of 50. There’s some that do that, right? Yeah, it’s not that common. So that’s more of a demand generation. So we have to create that demand by running YouTube and Facebook ads. And so for boom, Facebook is the biggest channel, but but YouTube is number two. So to generate that demand, so so that’s another reason why I love YouTube is because one of the ways to grow, chopping and chopping is super profitable and really powerful. One of the best ways to grow it is to do is to run YouTube ads, right or run top of funnel Facebook ads, and that’s going to feed more people into kind of the shopping funnel. So we are gonna hit ceilings, and it’s gonna, the height of that ceiling kind of depends on the category of the product that you’re in.
Joshua Chin 27:31
And the way that you run your campaigns, and just from a, like, you look at different channels for for, for example, for Boom, how do you make sure that and I know that you have a different methodology to this? How do you make sure that these channels are not siloed? Um, I’m just curious from like a fellow agency operator, how do you make sure that the teams are speaking to one another, and the outcome of those campaigns are kind of a sync up of the channels versus a silo of results?
Brett Curry 28:08
Yes, such a great question. And I love that analogy, because I still think a lot of brands are operating in a siloed mentality, right, I have a, I have a 2.5x. Ro as goal. So that means I want every campaign to drive a 2.5x return? Well, if you do that, you’re basically not gonna run much on YouTube, not going to do a lot with Facebook top of funnel. But if you say I want to hit a 2.5x, then maybe top of funnel Facebook and top of funnel, YouTube operates at a .75, but it makes shopping way bigger and branded search way bigger and organic way bigger and email way bigger. And so then collectively, you can still hit that 2.5 or 3x, portfolio wide. So one of things that’s that’s amazing is if you worked with someone like Ezra who just understands marketing at a fundamental level, and so that it’s easy to have these conversations. And so he was one of the first people first clients that I heard talk about, hey, we want to hold each campaign to two standards, right? We want to have goals and objectives for campaigns. So it’s not that we can say, Well, YouTube is the first touch. So it doesn’t matter what the row as is. We don’t say that, but we just don’t expect YouTube to do the same thing as branded search, right? And so we hold campaigns accountable, but then it kind of comes down to total money in in terms of revenue and total money out in terms of ad spend. And so, you know, a word that I hear a lot of people talking about now and I’m really thankful but a lot of people are thinking about it is is media efficiency ratio or MER, right? Which basically you’re you’re looking at your total ad spend and your total sales and making sure you’re in alignment. So you know, there’s always going to be this scenario where Facebook’s going to take credit for a sale Google’s gonna take credit for a sale and if you’re doing some Amazon like Amazon DSP, or something they’re gonna take credit for the sale to email was to take credit right so there’s always gonna be a little bit of that, or quite a bit of that. So the way you unpack that one of the ways you unpack that is by making sure your MER is always in a good place, right? And over time understanding that, hey, to hit a 400%, you’re relaxed from a MER standpoint, I need the, you know, certain channels to be reporting at at x. And so then kind of understanding that so, so we were definitely having those conversations, you know, we’re looking at how do we, for all of our clients, even if we’re just doing Google, YouTube and Amazon, how do we at least get insight on what they’re doing on Facebook so that we can see as we go up or down or in spin, or Facebook goes up or down and spend what that does to branded search campaigns and things like that. So using third party tools and other things to help track that and get clear is also pretty important.
Joshua Chin 30:46
Let’s switch gears a little bit. eCommerce Evolution, really fun podcast and I think that you bring a ton of energy to the show that I try to learn from a lot. What is your who are who is your favorite guests in? In 2021.
Brett Curry 31:12
Man that is really, really tough. I just recorded a couple of things that are super awesome that I that I can’t tease just yet but one of my favorites. This was so much fun, did an interview with with Joseph Wilkins of funny sales videos and said this is I’ll actually look up the actual episode here. I was actually just talking to somebody else about this recently, Episode 184. So I just happen to have that queued up because someone else was asking about it before but he’s the creative agency behind true Earth. So are you familiar with true earth a little worried? It’s Ryan strips? Yeah. Yeah. Ryan McKenzie. Yeah, longtime friend. We helped them launch on YouTube. So we we first like this. Yeah, it’s an awesome brand. Ryan’s an awesome guy. Shout out to Ryan McKenzie.
Joshua Chin 32:01
By the way, I love the product. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s not in Singapore. Right? If you listen to this, come to Singapore. Launch in Singapore.
Brett Curry 32:09
It’s the next market. Hey, it would not be that hard to get into the Singapore market. Right? You’ve got a connection right here. Yeah. Josh. Yeah, it’s not a huge country size of Rhode Island. I just learned this. Exactly. Josh, and make it happen own the Singapore market. So we helped, you know, true, true Earth launch on YouTube. And now YouTube is a really large channel for them. And so as soon as Google kind of helped them build from the ground up, and we were working with some pretty basic videos like Ryan Ryan’s a very sharp marketer, he wrote a script he recorded this video basically on his on his MacBook you stock photography. Like it was an okay video the message was good, but like the production was like really cheap. I think we got 12 million views on this video now and it’s still it’s still cranking out sales. Well, he started working with a guy named Joseph Wilkins and Joseph is brilliant, just absolutely brilliant. He kind of like Harmon brothers style videos, the thing Squatty Potty PooPourri Purple Mattress, things like that. But Joseph has created stuff for True Earth and a number of others. So in this podcast with Joseph we like walk through how to make a funny sales video that works because some of the videos that Joseph created for true earth you know, we’ve taken to 100 million views plus, right so he lays out the whole formula. It’s super fun. He’s he’s got a great British accent. So you love that as well. So that was probably my favorite but man, I’ve had a lot of really good guests and and I assume you’re this way to almost every podcast post that I talked to is this way. One of the main reasons I keep doing it, I keep posting a podcast just because I get to talk to awesome people I get I get to speak commendations now or with Joseph Wilkins, when why also we talked for an hour, you know, so yeah, getting to meet people is super fun. But again, you know, interview Ezra Firestone, obviously, and he’s a he’s a good friends, we get to hang out some as well. But But yeah, I think Joseph is probably the number one for right now, for that for this year.
Joshua Chin 34:07
And as usual, for people listening, links will be in the show notes go to Chronos.agency/podcast. To check out more. And, Brett, you have been in the in the scene for a long time. I’m pretty sure as as as time went on your beliefs and your philosophy when it comes to work and business probably had some major shifts along the way. What was a recent eureka moment or belief shift that that changed for you. I’m always interested in in that because I think that that shapes the decisions that we make, and I think I personally learned a lot from kind of observing the beliefs philosophies of people?
Brett Curry 35:05
Yeah, it’s such a good, such a good question. And, you know, I think one thing about most entrepreneurs is that, and I mentioned that I love the game, right? I love being in the game. So I do tend to think about work a lot. I think about growing the business, I think about what’s next, I think about partnerships, I think about people that I want to meet. And so I’m thinking about this quite a bit. Now that I have a good team in place, an awesome COO, and really just great team top to bottom, I don’t have to work the same hours that I used to work, I still work a lot, but I don’t have to work crazy hours, like like I used to, to build the business. I think a couple of aha moments, I actually one came from coaching. And so I mentioned this too, before we hit record, I coach East coach basketball, love basketball. And so I was coaching, I was like a volunteer by helping my son seems very competitive team as a varsity team, probably too much of a time commitment to be doing that and running an agency, but I did it. And one of the things that I learned was like, you know, you can’t get out on the floor and do stuff, right? You can’t as much as you may want to. You can’t write and you can’t make someone do something, right. So so what you have to do is create this environment that brings out the best in people. And then you have to coach and steer and guide to bring out the best in someone on the court. And when you do that, you can get so much more done than you could ever do if you tried to do it all yourself, right. So I mentioned we’re a team of 50 plus now and growing very rapidly. So you gotta have the right the right people in place. And now, you know, I’m mainly working with our directors and our C level or director level positions. That’s mainly who I’m influencing. But we’re really seeing like, hey, my goal now is to create an environment where people are driven to be their best and become their best. And so I actually I know, for me, like, I can be the best in my position, if I’m not working crazy hours. And if I am investing in my own health, and so I’m pretty crazy. I’m almost religious about taking supplements, and pretty committed to working out a set number of times a week and things like that. And so I definitely have more of a white space around the time I’m in the office, because I do have eight children, right, and I want to spend time with them. And I have an amazing wife and I want to spend time with her. And so so I have I do think I don’t like the word balance, because I don’t know if that’s ever, like achievable or even what you want to do. But I do have some whitespace around work where I can do things that really matter and things that that I’m going to treasure forever. Because really, it’s it’s about relationships. And I think it’s sort of like this really long winded answer. But one one final thing I’ll mention is I you know, we talked about money in the beginning, and I just I made up a number, you know, 20 million in the bank or whatever, I’ve got lofty goals. From a financial standpoint, I think that’s totally cool, right. But I also know, and this has been a big shift for me that, that what I want to optimize for, though, is doing something meaningful with people I like, and having adventures, right, like doing things that it’s fun, you know, like we’re working with guys like you it’s fun, working with the people on my team is is fun, and yes, we’re successful making money as well. But I want to, I want to optimize for relationships and adventures first, and you can make money as you’re doing that.
Joshua Chin 38:32
Yeah. I love that so much because it’s it’s actually a recent realization or struggle of mine, I guess both a little bit of both, that we are a very outcome oriented company, Chronos, naturally coming from the demands of our clients and as wanting to succeed, one of our core principles is obsess over client success. Yeah, and by by extension, that means obsessing over the outcome of what we do, not necessarily the process that comes from it. So meaning we try to find the best route possible every every way we can every options either we get, but that doesn’t always necessarily mean that we pick the best process and the best path to follow. And I questioned that a lot because in a you know, from from another perspective, that can mean if the outcome is results, and if the outcome is like a financial number. They’ll do whatever it takes no matter what the process whatever the consequences that comes with that process. And that’s that’s a that’s a tough thing to think about. Because then number one, we might be compromising on the other values. Yet that’s Not in a well articulated number two, we may just be compromising on the journey and enjoying the journey in the first place. Which sucks.
Brett Curry 40:09
because it’s very easy. It’s very easy to create a success that you hate. Right? Create this world and ever people talk about that, I think. I think it may have been Tony Shea, the Zappos founder who’s no longer with us, he passed, but he was talking, I think we’re talking about like a previous company where he was building a growing, you know, scaling, crazy growth rate. And he walked in one day, and he’s like, I don’t really like it here. I don’t, I don’t like the people I’m working with. And this was pre Zappos. I don’t like what we’re doing. I don’t like any of this, right? So if we’re not careful, we could create a level of success that we don’t like. And then it’s like, what’s the point? Like, you know, it doesn’t matter how full your bank account is, if you hate every day, then, you know, why are you doing it? So
Joshua Chin 40:54
it makes sense. I love that. Brett, it’s been so much fun. For people listening, who are interested to connect with you and learn more about what you do. Where should they go to?
Brett Curry 41:06
Absolutely, yeah, it’s been a blast, man. Thanks for having me on. Really, really enjoyed it. And so the easiest way to connect with us is to go to OMGcommerce.com gets some free resources there Google Shopping guide that I talked about, you’ll find links there. Top YouTube ad examples guide is there so if you want to, I think one of the best ways to learn is to see other successful ads so put together a free resource that has some of the boom ads and other top performing YouTube ads that you can watch and kind of learn from and I break down why they why they work. And then some Amazon ad guides a sponsored brain video and Amazon DSP and some other stuff that you can check out. That’s the best way to connect. I’m also on the socials. So hit me up on Facebook. I’m on LinkedIn a little bit and trying to up my Instagram game and who knows like I’m experimenting with I’m thinking about getting on TikTok. Yes, happens. So that’s I’ve mapped out this, this calendar of what I want to do on TikTok. We’ll see if I actually execute but for sure. Facebook, hit me up on the website, LinkedIn, we can connect there.
Joshua Chin 42:10
TikTok I cannot wait. I’m going to be following you for sure. And is that @BrettCurry?
Brett Curry 42:18
Yes. Um, that’s a great question. So on for wait for which for which profile? Um, they though. So @Brett curry, is Twitter, which I don’t do a whole lot on the vBrettCurry is my Instagram. And then Facebook is? I don’t know. I don’t remember. So yeah, we can link to in the show notes.
Joshua Chin 42:44
Link to it. No worries. Awesome. Brett, thank you so much for being on the show.
Brett Curry 42:48
Josh, thank you so much as a blast.
Outro 42:54
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