"With more Facebook case studies than any other company, learn how MuteSix is helping the biggest ecommerce brands leverage social media to scale."
There's often disconnect between creative and performance marketers when it comes to social media marketing. Figuring that out is just one of the things that helped Steve Weiss grow MuteSix from to over 200 people in just a few short years.
"If I could educate my creatives how to be more data driven and if I could educate my performance marketers how to be more creative I'd have a winning company. In a humble way, that's how we started"
In this episode we chat about some of the latest trends in social media marketing and tactics specifically for ecommerce.
Steve is a lifelong entrepreneur, marketer, and the Founder and CEO of MuteSix, an iProspect Company, and an award-winning, full-funnel digital and creative studio founded in 2014. He is responsible for the overall vision, strategic leadership, service delivery, culture, and growth of the creative agency that has generated over a billion dollars in trackable revenue for its clients.
Under Steve’s direction, MuteSix has earned the distinction of most awarded Facebook social advertising agency, with more Facebook & Instagram marketing case studies than any other agency. MuteSix has grown into a comprehensive and integrated global marketing agency with prominent clients across all major industry B2B/B2C sectors, including leading brands in retail, e-commerce, luxury, nonprofit, technology, sports, publishing, and financial services.
Steve is a frequent speaker at paramount industry events and serves as a regular commentator on ad-tech topics and trends as they relate to the digital advertising ecosystem.
Jay Myers: Hey everyone, and welcome to, “Own Your Commerce”. This week, we have Steve Weiss on the show and Steve is, let’s see, I met Steve about three years ago. I think at the time we were just talking before on air here, I think he had hired his ninth employee. He was just a hustler, just working hard to get something going. He has over 200 employees now. He’s really a lifelong entrepreneur. He’s a marketer, he’s the founder and CEO of MuteSix, an award-winning full funnel digital and creative studio founded in 2014. He’s responsible for the overall vision and strategic leadership of MuteSix. And fun facts about MuteSix, I think they have more case studies done by Facebook on them than any other digital marketing agency, I believe. Is that correct still Steve?
Jay Myers: Hey everyone, and welcome to, “Own Your Commerce”. This week, we have Steve Weiss on the show and Steve is, let’s see, I met Steve about three years ago. I think at the time we were just talking before on air here, I think he had hired his ninth employee. He was just a hustler, just working hard to get something going. He has over 200 employees now. He’s really a lifelong entrepreneur. He’s a marketer, he’s the founder and CEO of MuteSix, an award-winning full funnel digital and creative studio founded in 2014. He’s responsible for the overall vision and strategic leadership of MuteSix. And fun facts about MuteSix, I think they have more case studies done by Facebook on them than any other digital marketing agency, I believe. Is that correct still Steve?
Steve Weiss: I haven’t counted recently, but at one point.
Jay Myers: Okay, we’ll go with that. We’ll go with that. Thank you so much for being on man. Really appreciate you coming on the show. I won’t go back and check. Can you give us a little quick background on why MuteSix? What is MuteSix? And why did you build this company?
Steve Weiss: Moved out to LA in 2012, as I said earlier, when we first started talking Jay. I’m from New Jersey and the time I experienced hurricane Sandy, which for a lot of us who were from New Jersey was a very difficult time to be living in that area and sadly I had a lot going on in my life. My stepfather was one of the eleven people who passed away in the storm. He was a hero to me, to say the least, the way he is an African American man and growing, you know, even during these times just seeing him as my hero. I’m proud to say that he’s my hero all the time. And seeing the injustices that he went through on a daily basis empowered me as a kid. I didn’t really under see or understand race growing up and I think a lot of us who grew up in a very diverse neighborhood, never understood what it was like to be an African American man in the US, I took it for granted. I called him dad, he was a rock to me. His name was Len. I didn’t see him as anything else and I think, seeing the way he passed away, I wanted to get out of New Jersey.
I wanted to try something new and I moved to LA originally to be a stand-up comedian. I had a lot of sadness in my life, a lot of crying, a lot of sleepless nights are just missing and just wishing that he was a part of my success and I moved to LA with hopes and aspirations of a new life and being a comedian and having a background in creative. I saw that there was a massive opportunity with Shopify and Facebook, those are the two places that I think naturally. I was using Facebook advertising to get people to come to comedy shows. Now, not only will consumers come to shows, but they will also consume product. So, in effort to make money and to be able to survive at the time of living in my car and underneath the gym, in an effort to survive, more or less thrive.
I started consulting with brands on both the creative side and having a background in all of the Adobe products and post-production editing. And I started chopping up videos for Facebook personally. And I saw that there was, yeah from partner [Inaudible 03:34] with the brand. So, there was a massive disconnect and misunderstanding of creative and performance. And I set out to more or less build initially a collective around creative and performance marketing, which is more data driven and then creative. And if I could educate creatives in terms of what it takes to be successful on digital, I can educate my more performance driven marketers on my team, what it’s like to build great creative. You have the recipes for success for all that we can then duplicate across a multitude of brands. In a very humble way, that’s how we started.
Jay Myers: Wow.
Steve Weiss: I never raised any money. It was me working, living in my car first, and then just being able to keep building on success. I found a great business partner and before you know it in 2019, we sold the business to a little Liquidity Event. We sold the business to Dentsu, one of the large advertising holding companies. It shows if you set out with a great vision and you put and invest a lot on your team, good things happen.
Jay Myers: Amazing. I didn’t know. I know a little bit of the background, but I actually didn’t know a lot of that. Thank you for sharing all that. That could be a movie man. The why behind a business is really, it sounds like yours was crystal clear. You said you wished your dad was here to see it, but man, he’s a part of it. Like I don’t think I would be going out on a limb to say MuteSix wouldn’t be around if it wasn’t for him in some way, like everything happens for a reason.
Steve Weiss: Yeah, I refer to him as my stepdad, as I called him Len, that was his name and he got engaged to my mom two weeks before he passed away, so.
Jay Myers: Wow.
Steve Weiss: The saddest part was that I was hoping to see them get married and hoping to be there on that day. He was the only one who believed in me, I was more or less a bad kid who got in a lot of trouble that was when I was little. I thought I knew everything as a kid, and I hustled and I’m sure we all have similar stories of just being a little rug rat and getting into trouble. And he, he was the one guy who would always understand and empathize and believe in me. And I think we all have those people in our lives as entrepreneurs, there’s one or two people that no matter what they believe.
Jay Myers: Yeah, well, that’s awesome. So, then it’s been, I guess five years from start to the Liquidity Event and I mean, we talked in 2017. You were at nine employees, you’re over two hundred now. So, what’s it been like hiring two hundred people in a few years and working with a lot of the biggest brands in commerce? You scroll through the logos on your website, like you’re working with all the biggest brands.
Steve Weiss: Yeah. I mean, as I reflect on the journey, we didn’t set out to hire two hundred employees. I don’t look at Two hundred employees as employees. I look at them as family, each person on our team plays an integral role in our success. And it’s very important, I think to look at people for people, I think there’s a certain type of people that we always look to hire. We don’t always go after the smartest person, we don’t always go after the person with the best resume. We go after the person that has a unique background, that brings something unique to the table that thinks about life differently. And I think diversity and inclusion is something that’s the fabric of our organization. It’s something that we’re always trying to find out how we could become better at it. Because I think the key to success and marketing is that you want to bring people that have different backgrounds and different ways of thinking about life to the table and everyone shares their thoughts of how to market this specific product. I think that’s been the beautiful part of MuteSix. It’s that we do celebrate the diversity and we’ve been able to go inside of the organization. But I say this, it’s never enough, man. It’s never enough. I think that’s one of our pillars we’re going to be coming out with. Its how do we become more diverse and more inclusive?
Jay Myers: Yeah. And every mountain peak you climb to, you just realize there’s another one over the horizon.
Steve Weiss: Interesting. Right. As an entrepreneur, here’s three hundred and fifty employees. And I think that you have to always change and evolve. I think if you’re doing the same thing for more than six months, you’re falling behind, that’s just the truth. If you’re not evolving.
Jay Myers: I think even if you’re the same company for 6 to 12 months, you’re not evolving. I think every six months, man we’re a totally different company now.
Steve Weiss: Couldn’t agree more, and I just think we were lucky. I think if you look at all successful companies, we had a great core group or an incredible core group of people, and that’s what really allowed us to grow around this great core group.
Jay Myers: Yeah. That’s critical. That’s what the company’s built on. Those are the bricks, the foundation that makes it strong. Yeah. So, I want to touch on something you just mentioned. Okay. So obviously you’re at social media, but from a very practical standpoint, just for people listening. So, you work with brands to help them build, is it mainly just paid social campaigns or is it broader than that? Is it a full social strategy? When a company comes to MuteSix, what is it you do with them?
Steve Weiss: We like to think we focus on business outcomes. So we’re focused specifically on, is how to communicate their brand across the omni-channel and how to uncover new traffic channels that they’re not currently leveraging and how to find more efficiencies and do what they’re currently doing to drive the bottom line. We’re always looking at the bottom-line number of the business, I think that’s the key. I think the recipe for success is to not just look at channels by themselves but understand the impact these channels have across the whole conversion flow and across the whole business. So, we help companies understand their data. We also help companies really build out a strategy across all their channels, we’re focused around business outcomes.
Jay Myers: And so, when you’re saying channels, people use those terms differently. Are you talking in sales channels or social channels?
Steve Weiss: Both. I think that sales channels and social channels are one and the same. So, you look at how they can earn on Facebook or TikTok. We do a lot in TikTok right now. TikTok to major sandbox that we’re playing in. Obviously, YouTube is one of the agencies that really does YouTube well, as far as being able to YouTube for acquisition. You know all Google properties, search and shopping, etc.
Jay Myers: You mentioned TikTok for a second there. I had that on my list of things I wanted to talk about. Obviously, this is a growing platform. Do you think it’s the next big thing and it’s here to stay? Is it, have we passed that point? Where are we at with TikTok?
Steve Weiss: I think TikTok is here to stay. I think that they have a [Inaudible 10:37] when it comes to their product and they’re going after a specific user.
Jay Myers: How are businesses using it or how do you suggest using it?
Steve Weiss: Right now, TikTok is mainly for, I would say organic or earned media. I think that a lot of the companies that we partner with are focused on TikTok as a way to generate new customer acquisition for an audience. Facebook is a reaching. TikTok is a different type of consumer, they’re focused on content they love the platform, how easy it is to use. So, I’d say that TikTok has a lot of potential. That’s a good word to use.
Jay Myers: Is there paid advertising on TikTok yet?
Steve Weiss: There is paid advertising on TikTok.
Jay Myers: Okay. And are brands leveraging that or is it mostly just organic?
Steve Weiss: Brands are definitely leveraging paid on TikTok.
Jay Myers: Someone mentioned the other day that the most success they’re seeing with TikTok, is they’re taking their TikTok and they’re turning them into YouTube ads, the ones that are the most popular. What do you think about that?
Steve Weiss: TikTok is a creator’s platform. We’ve had a lot of success with that as well. Actually. It’s funny, you mentioned that we’ve seen a significant amount of success in terms of turning TikToks into ads.
Jay Myers: And TikTok doesn’t care what other platforms you post on?
Steve Weiss: No, there’s ways of exploring the TikTok and transfer it to other platforms.
Jay Myers: I guess ultimately, it’s also good exposure for TikTok, right? So.
Steve Weiss: Yeah, its perfect exposure for TikTok. I think they just have a great product. I think that’s why they’re growing so fast. I’m a TikTok user so I’d say that for me, what I love about TikTok is platform, it’s kind of like how Facebook was six, seven years ago. You have a huge amount of organic reach. You have a very unique way of creating content that filters adding different types of music and really playing around. I just think that for the younger demographic, and even for like old guys like me. I’m in my early mid-thirties, it’s easy for us to navigate as well. So, I think. TikTok is not going anywhere anytime soon. I think they’re only going to get better. They’re staffing up a lot in their company. So, we have a great partnership with them. And we’re one of the only partners as well that is able to run ads from white label accounts on TikTok too. So, partnerships [Inaudible 12:51] influence, if you want to run ads from their account or with a few partners that has that ability.
Jay Myers: Oh, interesting. Yeah, TikTok, my perspective is, I think it really taps into the human need to create, and people want to create. When you were a kid and you got a video camera, you want it to film and make something. And TikTok makes that so easy to cut spots, add music. And my daughter is six years old, but she has a cousin who’s 13 and she makes TikToks with her, but she doesn’t look at them. She doesn’t look at them once it’s on the platform. She’s six years old, but she loves to make them, but she doesn’t really like enjoy making a post on Facebook. So, there’s like an innate need to create content and, TikTok, I think they’ve tapped into it perfectly.
Steve Weiss: I love it. I think that it’s easy to use. I think there’s just a segment of the population, which just will never go back to Facebook.
Jay Myers: Sweet. On the topic of social. You got Google, Facebook, Instagram, Snap. When you look at a strategy for an e-commerce store, so someone listening right now, do you look at a cohesive strategy across all channels? Do you have different ones for each different platform? I mean, maybe I’ll let you speak on that a little bit, but like which one would you focus on the most? And maybe, can you talk a little bit about how an e-commerce brand specifically, which I think is mainly what you focus on is e-commerce brands, right? I think you have a few outside, but anyways, where would you start as far as thinking about a strategy leveraging all, or would you recommend starting with one? I’ll leave it open ended, I guess.
Steve Weiss: Obviously you want to make Core Blue profitable, which is all Facebook’s properties. I think that’s the number one. It’s the number one place that we’re focused on because that’s where that has the most volume. So, for most companies that are launching an e-commerce product, making Core Blue and then Google work at scale. Facebook is the biggest platform for discovery and discovery is nine tenths of the game to get that first one hundred or a thousand customers. So, we want to make Facebook and Instagram work at scale and at efficiency. And then obviously number two, because we’re running Facebook. We’re also getting a lot of people Googling that. So, we also want to be running paid search YouTube.
We also want to be setting up reviews. Reviews are really, really big and really important. So, we want to focus a partnership with a great reviews’ platform. And then, on top of that, if they are selling on these channels, they are selling marketplaces. We also want to make sure that they’re set up and optimized properly on Amazon. So, Amazon’s a big conversion point for us, whether there was seller central or vendor central. You’re making sure that they have correct images on their pages, making sure that the price matches to what we’re doing on Shopify. So, it really depends on the product. Most of our companies, we partner with are e-commerce, but we’re always trying to focus on the omni-channel and the key business metrics that drive the business.
Jay Myers: And when you say reviews, are you, are you referring to reviews on the product page? Like the one to five star or customer reviews, they like a video review or something like that along those lines.
Steve Weiss: Yeah, partner reviews. Partnering with like an Okendo or Yotpo or one of those partners, that we all love. Obviously, there’s pretty great review companies that we partner with a lot of them. So Okendo, Yotpo, Stamped.io all those great guys, review companies.
Jay Myers: The contents you create, is it created by MuteSix or do you leverage user generated content?
Steve Weiss: UGC is a big part of our offering. We have a whole influencer team that usually the partner that reaches off influencers and gets UGC and creates strategic partnerships with creators. I think that’s a huge reason why we’ve been able to be successful is that we’ve empowered networks of creators, for almost all the brands that we work with.
Jay Myers: Are you posting them through the brands channels, or still on the individual influencer’s channels?
Steve Weiss: We’re posting them both, on both the brand channel, as well as the influencers’ channel. We’re getting access to their accounts, to run ads from as well.
Jay Myers: On the topic of Influencers. Where’s that going now? It boomed? It did really well? We’re not in the advertising space. You obviously know better, but like my perspective is you can tell me if I’m totally wrong, but it boomed then obviously a lot of fake, not fake influencers, but influencers with maybe not the most solid followings were appearing. Now it seems like there’s this trend towards, I don’t know if you call it like micro influencers, like influencers that maybe don’t have the millions, but they’re small micro and you work with a lot of smaller influencers than a few large ones. Is that an accurate view?
Steve Weiss: Yeah. I mean, I think what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to work with creators. We’re trying to find people that create great content. We’re less concerned about how many followers they have or all the other more or less vanity metrics. We’re more focused on the type of content they create and the voices that they have.
Jay Myers: And how do you find these influencers? Is it marketplaces for them or do you scour Instagram and look, or do they approach you, or?
Steve Weiss: Our team actually goes out and finds them, mainly TikTok we’re focused almost. So, you know TikTok, in the past, we’ve done a lot with Instagram and there’s a lot of different networks that we tapped, a lot. I’m not a hundred percent expert at how [Inaudible 18:20], but I know we have a couple of great partnerships.
Jay Myers: Are people who are influencers on TikTok also influencers on Instagram or do they pick a channel and that’s it.
Steve Weiss: Mainly they’d pick a channel.
Jay Myers: Interesting. So, influencer marketing is, by your opinion, definitely not dead, it’s just evolving?
Steve Weiss: It’s definitely just evolving. Definitely. I think we’re at the first base to it.
Jay Myers: Yeah. It’s kind of figuring itself out. Where, you know Zuckerberg last year? I think it was where he said social is, I can’t remember the exact quote, but something to the extent of like social media is going private. And as opposed to on all the public forums, there’s private groups, private DMS, private threads in Instagram. And that seems to be how a lot of the kids now, I say kids, communicate instead of posting. Everyone I know who’s under the age of 25. They have Snapchat groups they share to, or Instagram groups that are a little bit more private. Then how are brands approaching and managing that to the audiences that maybe aren’t as interested in the general feeds? What strategies do you recommend around that?
Steve Weiss: It’s a definitely different type of consumer, I think that’s what we’re seeing is the [Inaudible 19:31] consumer. I agree it’s very different that the feed and the stories just aren’t as interesting to them as the group setting. It’s smaller groups, more privacy, etc. That’s why, WhatsApp, Snapchats like smaller group chats. And I think we’re trying to empower brands to build those small communities around their customers and in place other customers feel empowered to be able to communicate. That’s what I think is the future, it’s going back, thinking about community and not just thinking about paid media.
Interviewer: Interesting. And I mean, as far as direct messaging. Do you work with brands on that? Or is that outside of your scope? Like I know a lot of companies have had a lot of success directly messaging people that comment on their posts, so they’ll run post that gets a ton of engagement. And then they message the people that comment on the post, almost like they have full time staff messaging people that comment creating this crazy engagement. I know Pura Vida Bracelets is really good at this. There’s a number of others. Is that something you work with brands on or is that outside. That’s for them to figure out on their own.
Steve Weiss: Was just trying to understand your question. You’re asking if we respond in messages, like we’re respond to social [Inaudible 20:47]?
Jay Myers: Not that like MuteSix does the responding, but like helps brands figure out a strategy. So, a Scenario might be that you have a post and the goal is it’s a certain product and all the comments on it. How does a brand then DM those comments in a way that’s not salesy? Do they? I mean, I guess it has to be on brand and it has to be their voice and their message.
Steve Weiss: It really depends on like what their messaging. I think it’s more or less, how does this sound, how does the brand add something to the conversation? I think that’s the biggest, biggest thing that we’re focused on. You don’t want to use these channels to be very sales focused. No, we do a lot of text messaging, but that’s more on the CRM side, but I think messaging DMing, we’re definitely not encouraging brands just to DM people based on them responding without being inside the conversation.
Jay Myers: Right. Okay. So, if you had two businesses, one has a thousand dollar a month budget and one has a hundred thousand dollars a month budget. For the business that says, okay, I’m ready to start advertising on social and I’ve got a thousand bucks a month. What would you spend that thousand dollars a month on?
Steve Weiss: You mean on what channel?
Jay Myers: Yeah. Say it was your company and you were selling Steve’s Air Jordan shoes and Steve Airs and Air Steve’s. And you wanted to drive as much traffic or sales or bottom line growth, however metric, what would you spend Steve’s thousand dollars a month on?
Steve Weiss: There’s a lot of kind [Inaudible 22:21]. So, it depends how much, do I have an unlimited amount of supply of the product? And first I would probably partner with the final couple of creators that are inside this segment of the people I want to target. I’d have them create [Inaudible 22:33] and around the products. I’ll then take that UGC, they generated and has access to use it from their page. And I will start running ads from their page directly to my site. And then I would start optimizing the site, gathering user data off the shopping cart and start building out a CRM. But to answer your question, I would probably start off with Facebook as a channel.
Jay Myers: Can you advertise through any personal account?
Steve Weiss: You can definitely advertise through any page, not a personal account. It has to be like a page.
Jay Myers: Any page, okay. People that are creators, they’re doing this is their strategy. It’s not like I love camping, I go camping all the time. I post about tents and someone in a tent company approaches me and says, Hey Jay, can you create some content about our tent? And can we advertise it on my personal Instagram or my personal Facebook page? That’s not the case. These are people that have pages created already for content.
Steve Weiss: Correct. They already have the page.
Jay Myers: Okay. Do you ever do that? Is that ever a scenario where you guys find someone that’s just creating content and then you help them get into that space or that’s on them?
Steve Weiss: Yeah. I mean, it depends on the scenario of what the outcome is that we’re trying to drive. But if we have it, there’s a great content creator, we like to partner with them. See if there’s brands that we can partner on, see if there’s projects, we can partner on, it really depends on the situation.
Jay Myers: Yeah. And then if you had a hundred thousand dollars a month, would it change?
Steve Weiss: It depends where the business is. There’s obviously just because you have money to invest doesn’t mean that you want to invest it all in one place. I mean.
Jay Myers: Yeah.
Steve Weiss: Right. A hundred thousand dollars, probably creating more products, more content. I’m probably partnering with more creators and I’m probably doing what I would do at a thousand dollars and figuring out how to get data back quicker and how to get feedback from sales to pay for media quicker. So, I think I’d be more aggressive at a thousand.
Jay Myers: Interesting. Well, one of the things I wanted to ask you while I got you here, before we run out of time. At the time we’re recording this, there’s all kinds of riots and things happening around the States and with statements, obviously I think this will probably air in a couple of weeks, but who knows where we’ll be at that point. But while this is happening and kind of a conversation going on, what is the responsibility of brands on social media? When it comes to whether it be political things happening or anything of that nature, what’s your opinion on that and how should they engage?
Steve Weiss: I think they have to listen. I think the number one thing is the brands have to listen and they have to be sensitive to people’s views. You have to be sensitive to obviously [Inaudible 25:22]. They have to be sensitive to what’s going on in the press. The reality is that there was a horrific injustice that happened, George Floyd should still be alive. And I think customers want to hear from brands. They want to understand where brands stand and will they allow this injustice to keep going. And what changes they make to what they’re doing, how this influence positive changes in these brands. I think that these brands, whether it’s donating to specific foundations and charities, whether its black lives matter or others, that really empower African Americans in the workplace. Whether it’s making sacrifices or commitments to being more diverse or having diversity councils or doing different types of product offerings, raising money, people want action right now. I think there’s definitely a large segment of people, including myself that feel very strongly and are very angry at the situation that happened in Minnesota. And obviously now all three police officers, including the first guy are arrested, but we all want to see social change and we all feel very strongly about it. So I think, brands have to really speak up. They’re quiet and they’re not tackling the issue that they risk. Having people not know where they stand. And I think right now, at least being quiet is a scary place to be.
Jay Myers: I agree. If you have a voice, I think you need to use it. And there’s a lot of times where brands maybe don’t want to say something because they don’t want to offend anyone. They would rather stay neutral. There’s no shortage of people who are neutral. And I think it’s important that if you have a voice, to use it. So, I’m glad you’re on the same page. I got one more question here before we head up our quick lightning round with you. Forward-looking a little bit in e-commerce and social media. What are some trends you see from your seat, of the world of how you see e-commerce and how you see the world? What are some things happening that you think we’re going to see more of?
Steve Weiss: Consumers are getting smarter. They’re really watching brands closer, and they’re really figuring out how to work with and partner with brands that share their vision of the world. From an expectation perspective you can’t false advertise to consumers. Consumers are too smart for that. So I think number one, consumers are getting more and more intelligent. Number two, they have a lot of expectations on the social front for a lot of the brands they buy from, whether it’s clean beauty, clean products, and organic products. The expectation, or whether it’s social impact, consumers really want to understand where brands sit on a lot of these social movements. So, I think that those two things. And then on the purchasing side, you can’t just run an ad and expect people to buy your expensive product. You have to do more. You have to really make sure that you have reviews. I think reviews and user generated content is more important.
Jay Myers: I think that’s something that’s come through really loud here in this conversation. And I’ve just found it interesting that, that was the first thing you said when you had your Air Steve shoe company, was that you’d go out and you find creatives. And I would be willing to bet, if I asked a hundred merchants, their first strategy to growing through a social channel, it wouldn’t be that. They would run ads and use just whatever audience they could select in Facebook and probably blow eighty percent of the money. So that’s been a really interesting takeaway for me. Okay. I got a couple of quick questions and then we’ll sign off, but I always like to ask a few quick lightening round questions. I don’t know if you’ve prepared for these or not, but if you don’t have an answer, just say pass. If you have an answer quick, short, pick your brain here. Really quick. What is the biggest mistake in e-commerce you’ve ever made, or you see others make?
Steve Weiss: Buying customers that have no affinity, no long-term affinity to the brand. I think that there’s a lot of brands that we’ve worked with that aren’t focused on a long term, LTV and just are focused on the first purchase and then completely forget about these consumers that have already bought. And they’re kind of just churning out customer, customer, customer. So ….
Jay Myers: Makes a lot of sense. What’s your favorite thing about your job?
Steve Weiss: Working with great people.
Jay Myers: What’s your favorite online store or the last place you bought something?
Steve Weiss: I want to be very clear. Hopefully this doesn’t come across as my view on society, but it was on Judy.co, the cool survival bag company.
Jay Myers: Oh, cool.
Steve Weiss: Yeah.
Jay Myers: Well, I know you recently bought an engagement ring. I thought it might be that.
Steve Weiss: Yeah. I didn’t find it online though.
Jay Myers: Okay, alright.
Steve Weiss: I didn’t wait for that ring to come in the mail. Although, I was Googling on Amazon. They do have engagement rings on Amazon, which is interesting.
Jay Myers: Did you ever hear? This was a few years ago, that the guy, I think it was Facebook he sued. I don’t know if this lawsuit actually went through or not, but he was looking at engagement rings, and then his wife was on Facebook and she started getting ads for engagement rings, and she somehow asked if he was looking for it. Did you hear about this?
Steve Weiss: No, I didn’t. But its [Inaudible 30:57]
Jay Myers: Sounds like it’s a reasonable algorithm that Facebook might use. If you could give everyone listening ear, one tip related to e-commerce. Anything, what would it be?
Steve Weiss: Focus on the needs and expectations of the consumer.
Jay Myers: Perfect. Most of our listeners, because they’re merchants, they own a business. Any favorite quotes that Steve has on his wall somewhere or in a notepad or in his phone, that you live by.
Steve Weiss: Be the change in this world, inside yourself that you want to see in the world.
Jay Myers: Yeah. And what’s your favorite book?
Steve Weiss: I read a lot about Abraham Lincoln for whatever reason.
Jay Myers: Really?
Steve Weiss: And I just finished reading this book called “Lincoln, the Unknown”, which was written [Inaudible 31:43] by Dale Carnegie. It’s one of my favorite books its “Lincoln, the Unknown” by Dale Carnegie. He talks about unknown stories about Abraham Lincoln.
Jay Myers: Wow.
Steve Weiss: Well, all that he [Inaudible 31:56] with his life. I like anything with history and biographies. This next book I’m reading now is about Cornelius Vanderbilt Steamboats, so.
Jay Myers: That’s interesting. Yeah. So, you can learn a lot about the now from reading about the past. So cool. Well, Steve, thank you so much for being on, man. I really appreciate it. I guess the best place to find you is MuteSix.com.
Steve Weiss: Yeah, MuteSix.com.
Jay Myers: Okay. And if anyone listening has any need for a world class, what do you call yourself? A digital marketing agency?
Steve Weiss: Performance marketing.
Jay Myers: Performance marketing agency, I love it. Where creative and performance are balanced. I love how you said that in the beginning, you saw the disconnect between creative and performance. Check out MuteSix. Steve is one of the salt of the earth people I’ve ever met. Actually man I forgot to tell that story at the beginning, when one year I was out in San Francisco and you drove all the way from LA to, I don’t remember if you drove her flew, and Snoop Dogg was at your office, you were filming an ad campaign for Snoop and you came up and you wanted to meet and hang out and you walked in. It was the Shopify unite conference.
Steve Weiss: Yeah, I remember.
Jay Myers: Yeah and I was like, Hey, and then you told me that Snoop was, I’m like man, you came to see me instead of Snoop dog.
Steve Weiss: Yeah. I didn’t realize Snoop was in the office [Inaudible 33:26].
Jay Myers: Here I go, now I thought you left.
Steve Weiss: I wish I could go back in time. I totally missed a filming but.
Jay Myers: That’s alright. We got to meet face to face. I would’ve met Snoop over me though. Alright, man. Thank you so much for being on. I really appreciate it.
Steve Weiss: Cool man, bye-bye we’ll chat soon.