Intro 0:00
Welcome to another episode of Ecom Experiences, a podcast for ecommerce marketing leaders who want to grow and scale their brands faster. Join us as we interview some of the smartest brand founders and marketing leaders in the industry. Explore the lessons they learned, discover the keys to their success, discuss what excites them most about the future.
Samir Balwani 0:31
Hi, it's Samir Balwani here, host of Ecom Experiences, where we talk to brand founders and marketing leaders about their experience as growing brands. This episode is brought to you by QRY. QRY is a paid media agency that helps brands balance brand awareness and performance marketing to drive predictable and profitable growth, to learn more about how we can help you visit. Weareqry.com, I'm super excited about the guests we have today. It's Jesse, the Head of Ecommerce at Goal Zero. He's super smart. Works on a huge host of things at Goal Zero, and they've got such a great mission. So thank you so much for joining us.
Jesse Nuttall 1:09
Yeah, absolutely. It's nice to be on the on the podcast.
Samir Balwani 1:12
So Jesse, tell me about Goal Zero, and what your role is there.
Jesse Nuttall 1:18
Yeah. So Goal Zero is a consumer electronics company, founded in 2009 with the mission of zero people being without power. When we say zero people, mostly third world countries, we definitely had a humanitarian we got started with humanitarian roots and developed, really the first power station, which is a battery bank of some sorts, where you can have an outlet, you can plug in devices, lights, things like that, to be able to have, you know, access to power when you're not near grid. So that's how we got started. We now do everything from home backup to battery banks, power banks, solar panels, whether you're doing deployable solar panels, whether you're camping or RVing or you're just hiking, we have solutions where you can put a little mobile power or solar panel on your backpack and go hiking and keep your devices charges for backpacking event or something like that. And so yeah. And then we're owned by NRG Energy, which is one of the largest energy providers in the United States, so it's very fitting that we're part of a very large company like that. And and then my role, being the Head of Ecommerce, oversee the everything, both domestic and international, online, so the branded websites, all marketplaces and all of that fun stuff.
Samir Balwani 2:50
Yeah, that's a huge role and a pretty amazing purview when you realize you're also part of a larger parent company. So I'm sure there's a lot of integration and a lot of thinking that has to go through all of that. So, Jesse, what's your favorite part about your role? What? What gets you super excited about the work that you do? So, yeah, great
Jesse Nuttall 3:13
question. I mean, the biggest, my favorite thing is, you know, it's, it's a combination of, like, my role within this organization, in particular, because I've been a part of a lot of brands that I've really loved and enjoyed, and I have the opportunity to be a part of just a fantastic brand that's very innovative and and you know, very far ahead of of of what normal markets and things like that are the consumer electronics. We're always trying to invent new technologies and things within our power stations and products. But the within the role this itself in the ecommerce space is, I think, the most appropriate answer for that question, and the my most, my favorite thing about the ecommerce space in particular is being part of an innovative industry and being able to orchestrate solutions for complex challenges. And, you know, having access to so many technologies that exist today, like AI, apps, software solutions, like there's just a plethora of of things out there that are available, it can be an advantage, and it's also can be a very big disadvantage, because there's so much, how do you how do you sort through it all and make sense of of everything that's available to then turn that into a solution? So that's my favorite part, but it can also be very taxing at times, but so that's what that's exciting for me. That's
Samir Balwani 4:49
awesome. I It's so interesting because there's, like, it's a real priority. So as you're in your role as Head of Ecommerce, it comes down to prioritization. It's not even the execution of all of the things. It's because there's so much to be done in any other team that's helping you. So Jesse, how do you prioritize things that get your attention? Like, is AI top of the list right now, or is it some other like augmented reality or some logistics integration? Like, how do you actually figure out where you're going to spend your time on things? Very
Jesse Nuttall 5:18
great question. We have to be. We have to be very careful that we don't get inundated with all of the things, because we'll get nothing done. Right? If you try to be everything to everyone, you'll end up being nothing to no one. And so we have to go through and look at every one of these possible solutions through the lens of cost benefit analysis, right? So one, are you solving a major problem that's preventing you from doing business? Or two, are you able to go get more revenue than you normally would otherwise? So we look at it through the lens of everything that we do is not just how much is it going to cost from a monetary standpoint, but how is it going to how much is it going to cost from a time standpoint, and honestly, in this in ecommerce world, time is more often more valuable than monetary right, than money, than actual investment, and coupling those two things together is one we've got to make sure that the solution is either something that's going to get something out of the way, an obstacle out of the way, maybe things like we're paying for all of this traffic, and we're not able to identify all the traffic and they're leaving, and so we and we never see them again. We paid for them. How do we maximize all that traffic? Well, that's something that's preventing us from getting the most revenue we possibly could from something we already have. So what's a solution that could potentially help us improve in that area? And then another one might be Well, every time a user is going to check out in their shopping cart, there's a button that doesn't work, or depending on their browser, their mobile device, or something like that. But we don't know that unless we have some sort of technology that's able to actually go and monitor that, make sure that every user is having the same experience. And so we need a solution in order to monitor that while we're awake, while we're asleep, we can't rely most brands, most companies, they rely on humans to just trip and fall upon those bugs that are on their different user experiences, and that's not a solution. And so what kind of technology is is available to be able to monitor that, make sure we eliminate those types of things, and you can back into that from a revenue standpoint and go, how many conversions are we're missing out on because a user wasn't able to check out, for example. So, you know, those types of things, and then, so those are preventative type things, and we immediately look good and say, okay, based from a prioritization standpoint, these things are the most important. What's a solution that we could implement in order to get these solved? It's easier said than done, but I'm just kind of giving some examples here, and then the other thing is, is, what things can you do to go out and get more? What gaps are there currently where you're not you're not maximizing every opportunity to to get revenue? Things like, do you have, do you have all your advertising campaigns in place across all the possible platforms? Do you have things like your PR strategy in place, where you're getting spotlighted within different affiliate publications, or, you know, part PR publications, things like that. Do you have a strong social media presence, both organic and paid. You have all of these like bricks laid that are the fundamentals to make sure that you're, you're you have the best possible chance to succeed and get the most revenue possible. So I know that's kind of a long and maybe elusive answer to that, and it's not a simple like, oh, here it is. You probably prioritize it this way, 123, and that's it. It. You have to look at it through the lens of cost benefit. That's really what it comes down to. And
Samir Balwani 9:31
it sounds like it's a little bit of an art in the science, because there's, there's times where you don't know the benefit directly. And you're, you're saying, Okay, we're taking this investment and we're gonna, you know, this might be a moonshot, and we've got to try it out, because we think it's going to help support in this way. So I hear you on that one for sure. So you know, we talked about kind of the opportunities and how you are thinking about solving them. What are those challenges? What are the biggest challenges you're dealing with right now?
Jesse Nuttall 9:59
Specifically. With us and with our brand. And I feel like, I say specifically, I feel like so many people in in this space are dealing with the same things, and it evolves over time, depending on, it's like, nuance, you know, just slightly, yeah, and it's, it's funny, because you get into different circles, and you have war stories about, like, back in the day with all the, you know, up and coming in the SEO space. I know I've talked with you about this a little bit, but you talk about the most disruptive things back in the day with like Panda and Penguin and then the Knowledge Graph and like, all of these things. And now it's like AI is very disruptive, and we're all talking about that. But right now, the biggest challenges for me and my team is competitors, taking market share and then playing the Amazon game. That is, like the biggest, the biggest challenge at this moment, and I know that, like in 234, years, it'll be like, Oh, remember when Amazon was the most insane thing to deal with, and they'll get it figured out. Amazon is the largest startup that is that you are required to work with.
Samir Balwani 11:12
It's insane. They just need to organize a little bit. They just get things that should be like standard flair, okay, and then it'll be great,
Jesse Nuttall 11:23
absolutely it's it was funny. One of my team, something on my team, they were yesterday for April Fools, shared a a meme, and it showed the Amazon ticketing system, and then underneath it said PayPal and all these different payment types to pay to get your ticket moved up to the top, the new the new Amazon ticketing system, and everybody was like, all laughing about it.
Samir Balwani 11:50
You gave them an idea it's gonna happen.
Jesse Nuttall 11:54
Now you can and they'll call it premium processing. So those are the biggest things. I feel like that is so that's such that's the same story across all brands in the ecommerce space, especially as is your competitors taking market share. How do you how do you rise above, especially with us, it's it's challenging, because we started this space, we invented this category, and we have all these competitors that are coming out of the woodwork. And I feel like so many brands are dealing with not just being competitors, but competitors from and I don't know about a better way to say it, because it's just how we said it here. But you know that that cheaper, like Chinese knockoff that tends to come in, there's no brand. There's nothing there. They just come in and they undercut and try and commoditize your products, or trying to stay competitive and making it to where you can still, you know, you can still win in your category. And then, yes, playing the Amazon game with things like the ticket, the tickets that, you know, getting products approved, and whether it's FBA or FBM or, you know, with now being able to integrate into your your website with Amazon pay and then fulfilled with prime and and all these different types of things, really playing that
Samir Balwani 13:20
whole game. It's interesting on the competitor front, because, like you said, it's not unique. It is a very common occurrence that, like competitors, come in and steal market share. And so I guess my question to you guys would be into you specifically, how do you look at that? And then what is your game plan against that? Because you can't it can't be price driven. You can't lower the price. That wouldn't make sense. It's a quality, premium product. So how do you navigate those waters, and what do you do in that instance?
Jesse Nuttall 13:52
Yeah, you really have to communicate, from you know, an awareness standpoint, really building those relationships early on with customers that you know, really pointing out what it is that makes your product unique. Why is it important that somebody buy with a premium, you know, engage with a premium product versus something that? And in our space, it's very important because 90% of the time, especially with our power stations, either going to need support, whether you're trying to configure solar panels, whether you're going parallel or series, or series first, then parallel, and then, you know, what's your maxima? You know, what's the maximum voltage that you can get to with your panel setup, whether you're mounting it on the roof or, you know, doing some sort of outdoor activity, you're going to need somebody to call or somewhere to go to get that information. And so one of the biggest things we pride ourselves on is our US based customer service. There's somebody you can actually call and get support. So really pointing out things like that, pointing out that we put a lot more pride into things like vibration testing and. And noise, noise testing and making sure our UL certifications and safety certifications are all in place so you can feel safe, you can have a reliable product, and you can get support when you want it. So I feel like that's the best way to navigate and it has meant for us to navigate competitors coming in and taking market shares. It's so important to point out why your product is superior and and people will people will pay more for a better product. The reason, the only reason they're considering going the cheaper route is they think they can get the same experience for a lower price. And you have to, as a brand, point out your experience will not be the same. And here's why that's really
Samir Balwani 15:42
interesting. And does that fall into brand marketing for your you and your team then? So is there is that kind of how you think about it? There's a whole series of brand marketing where you're putting out the brand ethos, the brand, you know, proof points, and then performance comes after that. Yep, correct. Okay, interesting. That's awesome. And I guess I appreciate that you said this will be, like a two to four year thing, and then you'll look in the your room mirror and be like, Oh yeah, remember when we had to deal with all of that? I know we talked about that ahead of time, but I almost, I'm kind of curious, what makes you think that that's going to go away in two to four years, or what might change.
Jesse Nuttall 16:23
It's just the nature of this space. Being in this space, as long as you and I have been, you see things. Challenges come and go right the challenges you never will think are going to be something of the past, and then it just does. You're like, oh my gosh, we never thought that that would be something, that it's not that you don't care about it anymore. It's just like it, there's, there's a solve for it that's so mainstream that it's now on to bigger and better problems that just surfaced. And that's,
Samir Balwani 16:57
I think you're exactly I mean, I I think about it on the advertising side, like we all freaked out about iOS 14, and it happened, and it changed everything. And it's not the same. It just changed. And we're on to the next element, like cookies are going to go away, and guess what? That's going to be the next thing we deal with, and we will figure out a way to do it, the idea that marketing won't exist, or will like fundamentally change in a way that doesn't exist anymore. I think it's just not really like, as long as you can get your brand, as long as you have a quality product that you are excited about, getting it in front of people to get them to purchase, will always be a path, right? Yep, on
Jesse Nuttall 17:37
100% and along those lines, is kind of funny. I just one of the big challenges that we're we're working through is the the switch from Universal Analytics to GA four, and when you invest a decade, a decade and a half, into learning a platform and becoming an expert at that, and then all of a sudden, it's almost completely irrelevant, based on this cookie list world that we're going into, and with Google switching over to GA four, that has been one of the big like you're you almost my me and my team almost feel, at times we're flying blind, because all the things we could just go and find and get access to, and we knew where to find it. Ga four is just such a different animal. And even Google doesn't even know how to to, you know, tell us where to go find the things that we found that we had access to and really relied on
Samir Balwani 18:35
with UA, it's really interesting. So on our end, we've noticed the same thing where a lot of brands truly feel like they are running blind. We had to build our own data platform because we just couldn't handle the GA for iterations. The data is missing and it doesn't have everything in it, and the delay is exhausting at times. And so I think a lot of third party tools saw a really nice uplift on that switch from UA to GA four, because you're right like GA for just doesn't fulfill the needs for a lot of people anymore. And it's really hard to navigate and get the data that you easily the things that you easily want just don't exist anymore. And so I feel that challenge every day, because I want to go back to UA so bad. And yet, here we are today. So I appreciate that for sure. Jesse, as we look ahead, though, what are you most excited about? So what are the things, the tools, that opportunities that you're looking at and you're like, Man, this is going to change everything in the way we do things.
Jesse Nuttall 19:47
Yeah, I am, honestly, and I know it's a lot of people are very fearful of this, but I am very excited. I feel like I have a pretty good understanding, obviously, it's not you. A total understanding. Nobody, I feel like, does, but it was, it's AI. AI, I feel like, is really going to allow so much more to be done with with with less effort. Not saying, a lot of people I feel like think the AI is going to overtake and replace. And yes, I think it will for some, but with this space in particular, I feel like AI is going to make the make for some of the most powerful solutions that are that can be done right, like we we're always talking about doing things in addition, AI is going to add multiplication to our abilities, right? So really, a multiplier of an extension of the human ability, the things that me and my team are already able to do with chatgpt Four and you know, all these different AI solutions now you've got chat bots that are bringing in AI, and they're integrating it with, you know, different types of things on your web, like these things you couldn't even dream of 10 years ago. You had to go in there and spend hours upon hours upon hours with your dev teams writing code to to try and get it to work and then debug it, then try just the amount of time that was wasted. And now with AI, the possibilities are just endless. And I feel like it's a very exciting time to be alive. It's very exciting time to be in this space.
Samir Balwani 21:34
Have you started using AI already? Are there any applications that you guys have already kind of explored, or, getting excited about
Jesse Nuttall 21:43
There are some ais that we're definitely implementing with our parent company, things like copilot, where we're bringing it in and actually making it to where our own internal systems, we're using AI for tickets instead of having to, you know, do it tickets, for example, we just chat with our AI internally. Oh, that's right, we're able to get a lot of stuff. It's so crazy. How much faster it is. Like just doing simple things, like creating a, you know, a group email, used to take forever, and now we can just say, create a group email, put these people on it, and it's done within seconds, and we're off to the, you know, doing this whole thing. And, like, we've got AI, kind of integrated in a lot of different places. I wouldn't say there's like, one thing of, like, here's this, you know, huge, you know, piece that's being done. It's more of like pieces just kind of all over the place that we're utilizing it for, but it's slowly becoming more and more a part of our everyday life for sure.
Samir Balwani 22:49
Yeah, we're testing the waters little by little, right? And then it kind of see how it all plays out. That's awesome. I'm excited to hear more about that. Jesse, final question for you, what advice would you give a new marketing director in their first 90 days?
Jesse Nuttall 23:05
Yeah, so I that that. So there's so much to unpack with that question of, like, what would you suggest if I had to, like, really, like, drill down to, like, what are the things that are there? So they're paramount to you succeeding in a director of marketing or director of ecommerce role, it would be being a student, right? So reading books always, always be, be reading and finding and watching and joining things like this podcast. I'm reading a book right now called Crossing the Chasm, right this is probably the 800th book I've read over the 1520 years I've been in this space, and I never stop. And it's so important that you continually learn and and don't ever get complacent thinking, you know, it all, always be a student. The other thing is networking. It is so important to network and build relationships with people in your in this space, because the amount of times I've been able to reach out to people and ask for a solution, vice versa, or I need a position filled. Or it is so important that you have relationships, you will not survive if you do not have relationships in this space, in my opinion. And you know, utilize events and take people out to lunch, I have a habit of, you know, I try to do at least one, if not two, a week, where I'm doing lunches, I'm reconnecting with people in my circles, getting developing new relationships. I cannot tell you how many times I've come up with a I look like a hero because I was able to solve something, but it wasn't for me. It was because I was able to get in touch with somebody in one of my circles, bounce it off of them, we have a quick discussion, and a light bulb goes off, or vice versa. It's we have to stay a community, and we have to work together to help us all thrive other like, if you don't join or become a part of this community, you, in my opinion, will not succeed.
Samir Balwani 25:24
That's yeah, I agree with that. 100% agree with that. I think all the things I've learned, and learning is absolutely key, has just been from talking to people like like you and and others, and the conversations that you have, questions you come up with, and the things you don't even think about that are possibilities, because someone will be like, Hey, did you see this, like, really cool thing that we put together and we, like, built this out. You have these aha moments. So I agree with you wholeheartedly. Jesse, thank you so much for joining us today. If someone wants to find you online, where can they learn more about you?
Jesse Nuttall 25:59
I'm on LinkedIn. Very, very, very much on LinkedIn, you can find me Jesse Nuttle and Yeah, feel free to reach out, connect with me on there. And definitely love it
Samir Balwani 26:12
amazing. Thank you so much again, absolutely. It
Jesse Nuttall 26:16
was great meeting you. Samir
Outro 26:27
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