What's Really Slowing The Business Down?

0:00Let's talk about business momentum here, though. I got an email from Matt who said at around seven figures with a small team, what did you deliberately stop doing that felt productive, impressive, or growth oriented, but actually, but was actually slowing down the business, especially slowing down the growth and hurting the efficiency slash a sanity of running a business. So there's a few things that I've done that to some people may have seemed impressive to us, it felt like whatever. So the biggest and most obvious one was when we sold chemicals and so we have stopped selling our own white labeled chemicals. This was something that we did in I think between the years of 2021 or 2022 to 2024. So we

1:03did this for two years. And why I say it's impressive is because when you like, if you looked at what we were selling, like the actual product itself, it was, I mean, I like to say, it was well designed. I thought a lot about the overall design of like our entire product line. And we, the chemicals worked. They were good. You know, I sourced from a good reputable company, a company that I had a personal relationship with. So that was very, that worked really well. I liked, I liked that partnership. The, you know, it got me set up on Shopify. I liked the whole process of like selling physical chemicals on Shopify. But there was a few things that I didn't like. One was the way our products were shipped. We had very little control if at if basically no control over how products were packaged and shipped to the

2:10customer. So people were getting shipments through like really weird third party, like not UPS FedEx type companies. Like shit, you've never heard of not even like DHL, like just shit, you've never heard of. And I was just like, why is that happening? And I think it was because the way we were using a 3PL called, well, technically it wasn't a 3PL was a network of 3PLs called Flexport at the time. It was called deliver with two Rs, which then Flexport bought. But basically they, I guess really didn't ship chemicals. So or like liquids because the way that they would package, even though we had like we had again very little control over like how things are packed, I labeled everything as fragile, which is the only way I could get them to actually pack the boxes semi well. But for the most part, they packed them like with no padding,

3:10whatsoever. And I'm like, you can't do that. These are bottles of a chemical that are sloshing around a box, a very thin shitty box with no padding, no whatever. And I'm like, I just and I couldn't get them to do anything else because they weren't the actual shipping company. They were just the 3PL. And so or sorry, they were just a network. They were the software behind it. Now I should have immediately switched companies. I should have said, this is not, this is unacceptable. I should have just went, you know, I know more now than I did then. I would have just went to a single 3PL, which stands for third party logistics company, like literally just one warehouse who can connect directly to Shopify and ship our products for us, ideally locally, but it doesn't have to be locally, who I would have control over how they shipped

4:13products. The second thing I didn't like was not having control over the product itself. I very, I had very little control. I mean, one, I had no control over any formulation over what the color of the product was, all that stuff. I had control over the packaging, the labels, but in order to change like the packaging itself, which I desperately wanted to do because I wanted our products to stand out from other products on the shelf, to do that would have cost so much money. And it wouldn't have been worth it. And so we just decided, we'll just stick with the regular bottles that they come in and we'll just change the labels to match our brand. And that's pretty much all we could do. The third thing I didn't like was the amount of money it took to run that side of the business. It was a very cash intensive business because we were buying

5:17it with one, we're running a seasonal business, we're buying this product in large quantities, which means we have to put a lot of cash out. And then we have to make that money back. And that's normal. I just didn't, and I knew that going into it realistically, but I just didn't like the feeling of it, especially for the type of company we were running. So I was like, the fourth thing, and perhaps the most important thing that I didn't like about it, which was the fact that I had a hard time providing education while also selling the product. And I felt like, I just felt like people are going to not trust us anymore because if I say here's how to clean a hot tub, use our product to clean the hot tub. And it's like, well, okay, could I use another product? It's like, yeah, technically you could use any of these products.

6:18They're roughly the same. But like, of course, I'm going to recommend my product. And so like, now we're not necessarily an education company. We're a chemical company that sells through education. And so I thought that's not really a good look for a company called Swim University. Like, I'm saying university because we are an education company. And some universities just not a good name for a chemical line. And so that we stopped. We were at one point, I think in our second year, making like a million dollars in revenue. But we were not seeing that profit. So, impressive, but not for us. Another thing we stopped doing where we stopped investing in social media posts. This is something we've keep trying to do. And I realized it is just not worth doing. So,

7:20let me explain what I mean. We obviously post videos on social media because we technically make YouTube shorts. And then we basically say like, why not publish it on Instagram and TikTok and Facebook and Pinterest and Twitter and anything that'll accept short form vertical videos. And we do that. And that's great. But we were trying to post regular photos and stories and carousels and, you know, and the problem with doing that is you kind of have to not every platform works the same way where it's like the image size that you would post on Facebook would be different than what you post on Instagram, which would be different than what you post on Pinterest. And the way carousels work on these on like Facebook is not the same way carousels work on Instagram. And so, and the same thing is true with stories stories only work on TikTok,

8:24Facebook and real or an Instagram. And they really kind of only work on Instagram. And we were putting effort towards this and seeing basically no results during peak season. And so, while it looks from the outside that we are like producing more content, it's not helping us at all. It's not getting likes, engagement, views. It's not growing us at all. It's not selling our products. It feels just like a massive waste of time. When we're already pushing content on those platforms, we don't need to be pushing more content that's slightly different and doesn't really do anything. So, that's something that we've tried to do once or twice. Set up a process for it. Did it for a long period of time, month, month and a half. And then just looked at the numbers and went, I know things are a long game.

9:26But in this case, I'm like, this is not working. So, that's something we stopped doing. And I thought was absolutely slowing down the business. And it's like, okay, whatever effort you were putting into that, put it into video. That's the thing that's working right now. Something that I thought was going to be, I thought multiple times this was going to be helpful. And it turned out it was actually hurting the business in a weird way. This is going to sound insane to say, coming from me, I think. But being creative. I don't think in our particular business, there is any need to be creative. I don't even think there's really any need to be entertaining. I think entertaining helps

10:28like a little bit just to like, you know, it's like the sugar with the medicine type of thing. But I don't, I just don't think it's necessary. Here's why I say that. The very first time I tried to be creative in a video was back in the day. I had made like these little jokes like I would bake in these little jokes in our videos. And like, if you go back and watch those videos, not a single fucking comment makes reference to like, oh, that was a funny little joke. It's like, kind of hurts the video because it makes me seem less professional. Now, it's very different if I was just cat, if I'm just casually entertaining and have little quips, that's different. But when you try to like write a joke, it just comes off like we're not being serious. And I'm willing to,

11:32I'm willing to push back on that idea. But there were two moments that I can tell you definitely did not help us. One was when we did the rap video. I did this back in like, 2012 maybe. We did a rap video about pool care. And when it first came out, you know, we got a lot of praise. It's a very catchy song. It's a very funny video, whatever. I even did like a making a video that went along with it. The industry, meaning like people in the pool and spa industry liked it because they're like, wow, no one's done this before. This is our industry. We're being represented in this fun, interesting way. And a lot of those people shared it. The people who don't like it are our customers. Here's why I know that because even though I did that video way back in 2012,

12:34if you watch it, it's still a good video. It doesn't, it doesn't look dated. It's still a good song. And so I thought, even like the last two years, I actually had it in our automation, our new subscriber automation emails as like one video like, hey, we made a music video about pool care. So that was going out to a ton of people. And when I looked at the results of that specific email, it had the worst click-through rate, the worst open rate, and no comments. I think I might have gotten one email back from somebody who was like, that was cute. And I just realized that like, these people are not looking for cute. They're looking for answers. Serious answers.

13:36Another time I tried to do this, which happened on this show, was when I thought, hey, for April Fools Day, I'm going to create an empty bottle. This is something I've wanted to do for many years. And I actually went through with it. I put it all together. And I actually sold a bunch of empty bottles, probably around 200 empty bottles. Now to give you context of what I'm talking about, because you've probably seen in pop culture that there's a chemical that you can add to a pool, that if you pee in the pool, it turns the water blue and therefore out to the urinator. Well, that chemical does not exist. It is, it is a old wives tale. It's what parents use to scare their kids to stop them from peeing in the pool. So I thought, well, what if I make the chemical bottle where I make like a real label and a real bottle, but there's nothing in it, right? And

14:42kind of like adding a little bit of validity to the old wives tale of saying like, hey, kids, I've added this chemical. Here's the proof. Here's the bottle. I added this chemical to the pool and don't pee in it because it's a safety thing. Now I still think that that's a good idea. And 200 other people thought it was a good idea too. Now as many as much as I had tried to like make it so obvious that this chemical does not exist and that what you are buying is an empty bottle for 15 bucks for fruit with free shipping. I still had some dumb, dumb's buy it and go, what the fuck? There's nothing in the bottle. And then like went back and we were like, of course, there's nothing in the bottle. It like literally says it on the bottle. And I said it in,

15:44I just, I made it so obvious and and just people are dumb. What am I going to do? But all it takes is like a couple of people to not get what's happening to ruin the whole thing. And a lot of people, I got emails back from people who are like, this is dumb. I don't know why you're doing this. Like, sure, cute, funny to you, whatever. But like, bro, grow up. Like no thanks. And they're not saying those exact words. That's me talking to myself. But I actually went and thought about it. And I'm like, yeah, I kind of agree. Like it is stupid. I thought it would be fun. And some people didn't have fun with it. And I also thought it was like an opportunity. Like, I'm sending out an email on my list straight up burning it, right? Because I'm like, here's

16:48a dumb thing. No one's like 200 people out of like 150,000 subscribers. It's not a good conversion rate. So it's like, it's not a good product. And I'm burning the list by sending those emails out because every email I send out like, you know, you want to make sales. You want to provide value. And yeah, for some people that provide it value, but like, not a lot. And by the, the amount of time it took me to put this all together was like a whole month of work because I had to do sales videos and, you know, I had to design the label. I had to get it printed. I had to buy the bottles. I had to ship the bottles. I had to, you know, set it up on Shopify. I had to build the sales page from scratch. Like there was so much work that went into that. And it's just nothing. So my conclusion to that is just like in my particular industry, I am not rewarded at all for being

17:53funny and creative. The other thing I, and I have learned this lesson many times. In fact, there was a long time ago, when I, we were a money lab back in 2016, I came out with my very first course, which was called Asana for bloggers, where I was teaching people how I use Asana to run my entire brand, which I still use Asana to do this. All right. And I came out, I created a sales video that was odd, like absurd. And I sent it to Chase Reeves, who I mentioned in a previous episode. And I said, what do you think about this? He said, are you trying to sell this product, or are you trying to be funny? And I said, well, I'm trying to sell the course. He's like, then don't be funny. Like this is not the time to do this. And I, you know, I, I reshot the video

18:59and did it straight. And I've done this multiple times in my life where I'm like, I'm going to create a funny sales video. Like, look, when you, like, I'm a, I use a company called Font Awesome, and I'm sure you've seen, you know, the, what is it? Dollar Shave Club ads. I still buy Dollar Shave Club. Their ad was hilarious. And now everyone copied it afterwards. But I'm like, well, so funny sales videos do work. I mean, Superbow commercials work, right? But what I was doing wasn't like, I was trying to sell a product. And I just, I end up going like a little too far. And then people are like, well, I don't know if this product is real or not. Like, I don't know if this is serious. And I think that I did this once with a, I had another course called Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers, which, which tanked, tanked. And I had, I created, I think like,

20:07three or four different sales videos. And they were all, like, one was a monster truck commercial parody. One was like a one nine hundred number parody. I still have these videos. I still think they're funny. Yeah, no one else did. So I do think there is like a time and place for creativity. I just, in that, in that industry and even, and even this one, I haven't found it. And it's, it has hurt the business. Now, if you go and look at brew cabin, for example, the extreme creativity that I put into those videos has worked in my benefit. And that's because I started the channel from an entertainment perspective. If I had started the channel is like, I'm going to teach you how to home brew. And then once in a while, I'll create it like super creative videos. I think they would kind of get lost in the sauce. I think it'd be like, well, I just kind of

21:11want to watch your like review videos. I don't need to see like you doing a twin peaks parody that you think is fucking brilliant. Like it kind of just feels, you know, a little heavy hand it. But, you know, because I started the channel with that thesis and that premise, it's like, that's what you, that's what it's, that's what you come to expect. So in, in some university, for me, we'd just given up any sort of like creative think outside the box type of shit. And we kind of just play it right down the middle and then just do it better than everybody else. Because like the creative shit, like it might get you a viral hit on Instagram, but it's like, and now it's very possible that it doesn't get you the right audience because people are watching it for a different reason. So like in the case of my pool care rat video, the people who really

22:13watched it and really liked it weren't actually my customers because it was my, it was the industry that liked it, not the homeowners. The homeowners don't find it interesting. They don't know it have to shit as any way that I'm talking about. So it's like, uh, whatever. Another thing that I stopped doing, and I'll, I'll wrap it through these last two is I stopped trying to get fancy with video editing, which is another way of saying, I stopped being creative. It's like, don't, there's no need. No one, no one needs it. No one needs fancy transitions. No one needs fancy animations. Like, like, you know, just, just give me the fucking info. You know, edit it so that it's clear, concise. It doesn't waste my time. It shows me on screen. It gives me good visual aids, but you don't have to get fancy with it. That is just wasting time and every single time

23:15where I talk to my brother and I go, I think we should start doing this now in our videos. It's like, yeah, why? Because you as the, as the creative CEO just want to fuck with it. You just want to make it look a little different, but does it really make it better for the end user? And the answer is usually no. A lot of that work is done in pre-production. That's where all of the real work, the real value is created. The edit is just putting the pieces together. That's not true in every case. Like I said, with brew cabin, the editing does matter. And I am praised on that. It's a very different thing because it is again, that is a creative, it's not even a business. That is a creative project where creativity is rewarded in my business, swim university, again, not rewarded, fanciness, not rewarded. And I've heard, you know, like fancy fails and simple scales or

24:19something like that, right? The last thing is, and I kind of touched on this briefly, but I really didn't, was this year, or sorry, not this year, 2025, we, for a while, we were shipping our own books. We sell two books through Shopify, through our own marketing efforts. We were shipping these books out of our home. I've brought this story up many times. There's plenty of episodes about this on this, on this show. I've, we stopped doing it in the beginning of like September of 2025. And what I thought was when we started doing it, that it was going to save us money and make us more profit because hey, we don't have to pay a third party company to ship these books. We're doing it, Steph and I in our own house. And so like, we're going to, we're going to be able to

25:19like keep the money that would have went to this, you know, 3PL. And that's good, right? Increase our margins. Wrong. That's not what happened. Instead, what happened was, yes, we saved, I don't know, a dollar or two off the price of shipping that we would have paid out, you know, and we were, you know, we weren't getting bulk shipping discounts like 3PLs do. We were paying full price. And the worst part and the thing that I guess I didn't really understand until now was the time commitment. It, you know, you might be on the other side of this thinking like, well, how did you not think of that? Because at the time when we started doing it, it was the winter time. And I knew we were going to sell a lot of books, but I'm like, dude, this is easy to do. Like, and, and we both, Steph and I, we both liked doing it. We liked taking time out of our day to just like

26:22do something with our hands and like pack books. But man, by the middle of the summer, we were like, all right, this is getting old. This is getting old. And it was getting to the point where we were like, you know, a full two hours would be taken out of our day just to worry about books. And then it made us think like, well, well, how the fuck are we going to go on vacation? If we want to go on vacation, like, people are just going to wait a week to get like before we can even come home to ship books. I'm like, oh, that's not going to be good. So we didn't take any long vacations in 2025 together. We did short vacations together, like, you know, just like long weekends. But like, we both took a lot of separate vacations because we were like, yeah, we really can't afford to go on like a full week vacation unless I can like get my brother to come over and do it for us three times a week, which yes, we could have done. But I'm like, this, that's a fucking nightmare, man. So when we, when we talked to the other company,

27:32like in my head, I was thinking like, sure, okay, we're just going to eat it. We're just going to eat the margin, whatever it costs to get this three PL. And it turned out because I didn't know what I didn't know. It's cheaper because there's so many things with this like this that made this so much better. One was that the company that we talked to, they get discounted shipping by a full dollar per book that we weren't getting. So I'm like, okay, included in the price, like, they're warehousing it. So it's like, oh, well, you know, technically we were paying for warehousing because it's like our house. So now we pay for warehousing, which is pretty nominal. We pay for them to actually pack and ship the book. But even though that costs like a couple bucks, maybe like three bucks, which I don't want to give the exact price, but you know, it's it's around

28:34three bucks per book. So I'm like, okay, well, you save a bucket on the shipping. So it's really only two bucks for us. Then you have the like, and that includes the the mailer, the thing that's actually packaged in. And then, oh, you still have to pay for inventory, but that's like pennies. So like really doesn't have an effect. And then they're like, well, if you're if you need book printing, we have a company that we'd like that does it. And then when I got pricing for them, it was way cheaper than what we were getting. So I'm like, oh, so literally making this like one big move earned us margin and gave us our time back, which increases our marketing efforts, which makes us more money. Impressive that we were able to ship that's cool. It's like, oh man, you got a little family cottage business, you're shipping your own books. Fuck that. Yeah, dumb.

29:35And we thought for a minute, when we were doing chemicals, maybe we'll just do shift the chemicals ourselves. Oh, yeah, you're going to stock a bunch of chemicals in your garage and ship them. Okay, big mistake. That would have been a goddamn nightmare. I'm so glad we didn't do that. But now that I understand a little bit more, now I know what I would do. So those are all the things that we're slowing down in business. And we've stopped doing them. And 2026 is looking very promising. And yeah, I'll have more to talk about that in a bit. But for now, just go to jibandicey.com. That's my last name, GIO, VAN, ISCI.com. Sign up for my newsletter. It's all it's there. And subscribe to the podcast if you're not subscribed. And I'll talk to you next time.