Well, hello there and welcome to the e-Commerce podcast

with me, your host, Matt Edmundson.

The eCommerce podcast is all about helping you deliver e-commerce wow.

And to help us do this, that I am chatting with my very special guest

today, Yoni Kozminski from Multiply Mii and Escala about how to scale

your business with the right talent.

Let me tell you.

Problem, problem we've all faced.

And if you've not faced it yet, cuz you've just started out, let me tell you, you

are gonna face this particular problem.

But before we jump into that conversation, let me suggest a few other, uh,

e-commerce podcast episodes that I think you're gonna enjoy listening to.

Uh, the first one is Jesse Schoberg, where we talked about outsourcing

remote teams and blogging your way to bigger e-commerce profits.

That was a great conversation with Jesse.

He's such a legend.

Legend.

He's also a legend, uh, as is JJ Resnick.

That was great.

Uh, eight step blueprint for building a successful e-commerce business.

Still remember that conversation super well.

Still got the notes, still look to them.

Uh, you can find these as well as our entire archive of episodes

on our website for free, uh, at www.eCommerce-podcast.net.

No idea why I said www, because no one says that anymore, but apparently I did.

Anyway, this episode is brought to you by the e-commerce cohort, which

helps you deliver e-commerce wow.

To your customers.

I can tell you back in, well, a few years ago, I nearly lost everything online.

Let me tell you, our business almost collapsed overnight, and there are

lots of reasons as to why this event.

Happened, Uh, and we were turning over 6 million a year online at

the time, but I can tell you, uh, why it almost went to zero.

Uh, Principally because I'd got siloed.

In other words, I'd become really good at one or two things, but I'd

missed the rest of the big picture where e-commerce is concerned.

And that's what e-commerce cohort is all about.

It's helping you solve that particular problem.

It's a lightweight membership group with guided monthly sprints.

It's cycle through all of the key areas of e-commerce, not just one of them.

Not just term.

It doesn't just pick on one or two bits.

It covers the entire.

Spectrum.

It's lightweight, it's easy to get involved with.

So do check it out.

It is gonna radically help you, uh, if you in are in e-commerce, regardless of where

you are at on your e-commerce journey.

You could be starting at, you could be like me, You could be well

established or well established, e-commerce as I like to say.

But wherever you are on that journey, do check it out because it.

Quite extraordinary.

Uh, you can find out more information at the website.

Let's do the w www.ecommercecohort.com, or, uh, if you, you know, you forgot the

www bit because you, you've never used that, just go to e-commerce cohort.com.

Or email me directly at matt@ecommercepodcast.net with

any questions that you've got.

I will try my level best to answer them.

Honestly, super proud of it.

It's an amazing thing.

All of that said, without further ado, uh, let's check out my conversation with Yoni.

Well, I am here with Yoni Kozminski.

Uh, he is an entrepreneur and business consultant with over two decades of

experience in scaling businesses.

Uh, over the years, he has helped develop digital strategists for some of

the world's biggest brands, including.

Get your notebooks out because you're gonna wanna make a note

of these Mercedes-Benz for all of you have in a midlife crisis.

You can, uh, talk to Yai about it.

Uh, MasterCard, Sony, Medtronic, uh, diet, Medtronic diabetes, Uh,

the list goes on and on and on.

His experiences eventually led to the creation of Escala and Multiply Mii two

companies that help businesses achieve.

Growth.

Now, besides being an awesome entrepreneur, Yi is also a seasoned

podcaster himself, and it's always, always interesting when you interview Podcasters.

, uh, his Successful Scales podcast is centered on questions relating to growing,

uh, selling and acquiring and scaling a business and what comes with it.

Now, if you are looking to take your business to the next.

You're not gonna wanna miss out on this conversation.

I'm super excited to have you here, Yoni.

Thanks for being here because we were talking before we hit the record button.

We've got some very good mutual friends, uh, in this whole space,

and so super stoked to be here.

Thanks so much for joining us all the way from Tel Aviv.

Matt, it's an absolute honor to be here.

We do have some good mutual friends, which know it makes me know that

I'm in good company here and.

Wow.

I'm already sitting here.

I'm taking notes.

Uh, what an intro

It's interesting actually because, uh, one of the thing

you are a newly, one of the things I didn't say in the intro was, you are a

newly crowned dad from what I can see.

How's that all

going?

I am indeed, mate.

Your team is on another level when it comes to their recon work.

Uh, so shout out, shout out to the production quality right there.

But, uh, yeah, I've got a, so I've got a three and a half month old at home, Leo.

And, uh, It's, it's the best, it's best job in the world, uh, to put it lightly.

It's the best thing ever.

Um,

oh, it's great.

Congratulations.

Cause Father's Day, uh, Father's Day was yesterday, right?

So, uh, that was your first Father's Day.

What did you get up to?

What did you do?

I'm glad you asked that, Matt.

And I know that my, uh, fiance likely will never listen to anything that I

put out into the world here, so I'll just say she did absolutely nothing.

Uh, um, she was very surprised when I said, you know, it's Father's Day today

while I was, I was very aware when it was Mother's Day a few months ago and

made sure to get a Flowers Trader.

Yeah.

And, and what I've learned through this journey, Matt, is that.

Through the pregnancy.

It was, How's Tali?

How's, you know, how's it all going?

How's the dog?

We've got a pit bull at home, Dusty.

Mm-hmm.

. And then, you know, people sel the mask about you.

And now it's, How's the baby?

How's Tali, how's Dusty?

And then you are just sort of off here into the left, like totally irrelevant.

Um, so it was no surprise that Father's Day was, uh, pretty unhelpful for me.

But I'd have to say I'm just happy to be a father and, uh,

you know, putting in the work.

Yeah, Yeah, absolutely it does.

Father's Day, I thought, cuz I, I have three kids, uh, myself and I've been

through several father's days now.

And it's one of those things where you kind of, it , all you can do at

the end of the day is just go, I am really, really grateful for my kids.

Uh, and the rest of it's just, it's just all good fun.

My, my son sent me, um, I'm gonna show it to you, Yoni.

Uh, I appreciate if you are listening to this podcast, you won't be able

to see what I'm about to show him.

Uh, but uh, if you check out the video, you will be able to see it on there

because it is something to behold.

Uh, I dunno if you can make that

out, , I, I can definitely make that out.

. Matt Edmundson: So this is the

son, uh, photoshopped my face,

that.

Brilliant.

That is brilliant.

I say that Josh.

Josh is your son.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Josh well played, uh, well played.

That is some impressive Photoshop work, I must say.

I had, um, I had a, Zach, my, uh, middle child, he

sent me a, a card with, uh, you know, the helium balloons on it.

Yep.

And, um, Zach and I have this standing joke cuz we both like to go to the

gym and Zach is now stronger than me in about 80% of the the lifts.

How does that feel?

And so he, he, Oh mate, that's just, just horrible

It's a mixture of both pride and contempt all at the same time.

, I'm like, you go bud.

You're doing really well.

But the other half of 'em is like, I've gotta work harder to try and.

So he, he had the picture of the helium balloons on the front of the card

and it just said, Dad, this reminded me of what you can bench press,

Oh my God.

So this is what you've got to look forward to.

Zoe, my daughter, she wrote in my card.

Uh, Dad, Happy Father's Day.

Um, behind every great parent is a great, amazing daughter

. Yoni Kozminski: That is.

I was like, this is, this is English, Northern English Humor 1 0 1 right here.

Um, literally every single one of your kids has had a brilliant dig

at you in some way, shape, or form.

Bravo.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's the way of the future, right?

So I appreciate dear listener, that by the time you're listening to this,

it is very far away from Father's Day.

Uh, but at the time of recording, we've just had it.

And so, uh, all that to say you only congratulations, uh, on the, the new.

And the other thing I wanted to congratulate you on was

the ability to do a back flip.

I have some serious envy, uh, on that.

And, uh, so well done.

Mate, that was, uh, that was a life goal of mine.

The question, the truth is, I can't, well, I don't know that I can still do

one, but in that time of that video, I could, You've got it on video.

That's all you need, right, ? It's there.

It's, it's in the ether now and it's not going anyway, so, Yeah.

Just so you know, Leo, when you grow up and when you listen to this,

your old man can do a back flip.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You've

got some work to keep up.

Right?

So, uh, That's awesome.

, so.

Uh, besides from having a dog, uh, a fiance, a newborn, and the ability

to fla back, flip, uh, living in Tel Aviv, uh, you've got these two

companies, aEscala, and Multiply Mii

um, how did you.

How did you get it started with, with this?

What's the sort of the backstory?

Yeah, so, so the backstory, like, like any

good backstory simply came from experience and understanding,

uh, from a, a specific market.

So I grew up in creative advertising and digital marketing and you know, you listed

some of the clients that I worked on.

But sort of behind all of that, I was the 10th employee in Australia, in Australia

at an agency that took on MasterCard when we actually launched them on social.

So there wasn't Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and Pinterest for brands.

Really.

It was just sort of at that age.

And us as an agency, we grew from 10 to about 35 people.

That was everything from SEO to web development, design content strategy

and production, media buying.

I mean the work sort of as it was all really starting to to come up

and then moved over to the states.

I was the 15th employee and agency working with Sony in Snapchat

and MasterCard over there.

And we grew to about 40.

And so what I would say is what I became, uh, Depth at is what the experience looks

like, growing from a very small to, you know, a small to medium sized agency.

And so when I moved to Israel about five years ago, I met a couple of

guys that had an Amazon business.

They were doing about 2 million in revenue and had got stuck.

And on the back of that I said, Look, you know what's happening.

You guys are trying to achieve absolutely everything with a team of.

Where not one of you has real experience in any of the things that you should have.

So they'd never done any media buying before.

They'd never done any creative design work, brand strategy.

They'd never done anything that relates to it, and yet they were still, you

know, I would argue very successful.

And so what I did was I effectively came in and built an operation

and a team at the Philippiness.

That was high level.

So I'm not talking about virtual assistance here, where you pay them

three bucks an hour and they do some baseline tasks I'm talking about.

Mm-hmm.

designers, ops managers, creative directors.

Uh, we built a customer support team, my co-founder and I, uh, of five,

and we built out the operational infrastructure and that business was

able to grow from two to 5 million in the space of that 12 months.

Uh Oh wow.

Subsequently acquired by Thio and on the back of that experience.

We just realized that we could really help a lot of people.

Who had great ideas, were very, very savvy when it come, came to product development

and understanding what customers or customers essentially were looking

for from a product brand perspective.

And so we sort of built that out.

Um, I would say, you know, on steroids for lack of a better term.

And so me, really the incubation of the idea that was multiplying mii was

our experience in building that team inside of the e-commerce business.

And then we've taken that.

And built it out into a proper operation.

And Esca on the other hand, happened probably six months

after the start of multiply mii.

And, and that really happened, I would argue by accident.

I think much like, uh, a lot of success, at least I would attribute in my life.

Uh, it all happens by accident.

Right.

Um,

no, it's amazing how many times you hear that is the answer.

How did this happen?

Well, by accident, really.

It was just luck.

Dumb luck, really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I interviewed, uh, I interviewed an ex Ernest and young management

consultant who just really wants to work.

Startup and she was a process improvement management consultant

out of en young in the Philippines.

And I said, Listen, you're gonna come and work with us, but there's no way

hell, I would waste your, your incredible talents on being a project manager.

Uh, so she delivered the first internal project of process improvement.

And on the back of that sort of three month experience, I just

said, Listen, we could rapidly change the way in which organiz.

Behave.

And so we built out Escala.

So now we've got about 35, nearly 40 full-time management consultants.

Many of them come from Ernest and Young, Some of that have Accenture

and Deloitte, Philippine based.

So we can keep our operating costs low and, and multiply me has probably

about, I'd say 280 plus people on payroll, but about a total of

110 people are reporting into us.

Um, essentially that was sort of how it all came to be, was just, you know,

understanding the environment that existed inside of that Amazon e-commerce business

and the challenges that they experienced.

And then obviously the business was acquired, so there was no more

business for us to deliver that.

And it was either, do we dive back into building another d c

or eCommerce business, or do we move into professional services?

And, you know, not that you've asked the question, but I'll just

tell you anyway, that decision.

That I made really there was that the capital constraints that would require

me to build an Amazon business to the level that I wanted to build it to,

you know, I would've had to put in realistically half a million dollars.

Mm-hmm.

and to build a service-based business, which granted, you know, it had a

decade of experience growing in and building myself was a lot, lot lower.

So that was really the the decision.

And I also would say as well, A lot more sort of, uh, meaningful to me.

I mean, I look at sort of our success as how many lives do we impact

because we exist in market today.

And, you know, I always lead in with how many people we have on payroll,

not what our, you know, what I would argue is a vanity metric, and we could

talk about it a bit later, but just, you know, I'm a 7, 8, 9, 15 figure

business, you know, at the end of the day.

Um, that doesn't have a whole lot of meaning to me.

And, you know, I would argue, We're on track to be a eight figure business next

year, but I could care less about the fact that that's, it's irrelevant to me.

That's

really interesting.

I, I, I do want get into the principles and concepts of scaling and growing

a business that you've learned, so we can pick your brains, but

there's a couple of things there.

Yanni, you said that I just wanna mention.

I, I, I'm really intrigued by the fact you went from, uh, running an econ

business to deciding to go professional services because of the capital

aspect of it, because, So many people are doing it the other way around.

They're in professional services business, but they're wanting

to do the e-com side of things.

So it's interesting that you, you, you kind of like the salmon in a spec.

You've kind of gone against the flow.

Um, and the, that intrigues me.

And, and then the second thing which intrigues me is this phrase, it has

to be meaningful to me, uh, and.

I'm curious as to where you got that from, because you don't hear a lot

of business people, um, these days talk about meaning you talk, you hear

people talk about six, seven or eight.

You know, you go by an online course, we'll help you deliver

a seven, eight figure business.

You don't go and buy an online course.

We'll get you a business that's meaningful to you.

Do, you know what I mean?

So where did that come?

So I'll start with the first question, and that

was, I'm a salmon swimming up stream, uh, the wrong way here.

So I would argue, or I would say that obviously it's a natural inclination

if you are professional services, then you move into client side, right?

Which is mm-hmm.

either building your own brand or working for a Mercedes or MasterCard

or whatever that looks like.

And I think that there is definitely.

There's definitely a lot of positives there.

Like, you know, you would argue as a, you know, a career professional

services guy here, clients are the worst.

Clients are the ones that, that, you know, that essentially are the

ones that make all the mistakes.

Cuz you lay out the equation of what they need to deliver on and

typically it's their inability to deliver on the expectations that

sees you render, you know, a result.

That's, that, that's not positive for both of you.

So, I moved away from the traditional agency model where we were responsible

for every component of delivery.

So we would come up with a content strategy that'd give us the budget,

obviously, and we'd produce it and we'd post it in every little issue

that came up, every little typo or spelling, whatever it was, it was on us.

So the model that we've built today really puts a lot more of the accountability

and responsibility on our clients.

So I'd say definitely taking a step away from.

Re-engineering the model, uh, so to speak, where a management consulting,

we've effectively democratized our ability to deliver that to people

that, you know, quite frankly, have never seen what that looks like.

You know, these people haven't worked with the EYs and Accentures and Deloittes,

and McKinseys and Banes of the world.

So, you know, to them it's absolutely groundbreaking and I would.

99% of our projects on the Escala side, people walk away

and they're like, Holy shit.

Like this is life changing in terms of what I'm able to achieve.

And on the Multiply Mii side, we're trying to move further and further

away from the typical business process outsourcing BPO space where it's.

You come to us, we'll hire you one person.

You'll have communication with that one person, and then they'll build a team.

And that's how it is.

We think in order for you to build a, a real business or a business

that that stands the test of time, you have to invest in your

culture and what that looks like.

So what we do is we facilitate the onboarding strategy.

We help you understand who you actually need, not just a job

description that you put out there.

And we sort of bridge that gap and then we.

You know, maintain that sort of fluidity.

So we pay healthcare and social security and HMO and Phil Health and, you know,

the business really was, uh, was started because there was a, you know, somewhat

of a social mission attached to it.

So I built myself, and I segue here, so I'd say that's why I'm, I'm back

in the professional services space.

Um, I'd also argue that I'm trying to build a lot of leverage, uh, long term.

Like, you know, I've been working on the 10 year vision

around the business right now.

Having a business that can effectively find you high value, low cost, uh,

individuals, and then having another business that can help you understand,

fix and build essentially any business.

We've made a, you know, considered decision to focus on e-commerce.

All of a sudden, I look 10 years into the future.

There's, there's a lot of things that you can do with both of those businesses.

My ability to scale up our operation and not break it, um mm-hmm.

is fast, superior to most people out there, especially at, you know,

at the investment that's required.

You know, we were talking before we pushed, uh, record and I was saying a year

ago, I didn't know what a bi ops team was.

Today we've got bi ops team of five.

You know, there, there's all these functions that I didn't even know that

you would need, cuz I quite frankly never worked for a business as large

as the one that we're running today.

So, um, so that's that component.

That's why I've decided to swim upstream.

And then on the meaningful or the consideration of why,

uh, why I choose a business.

Meaning and purpose?

Um, this is, this is a bit of a tangent, but, uh, bear with me for a second here.

I, I went to Burning Man for the first time when I was 27 years old.

Um, just as I moved to the US mm-hmm.

, um, and Burning Man is a, an arts and crafts festival.

It's, um, honestly, it's like nothing that exists, uh, anywhere else in the

world other than sort of the sub burning mans that you, you see in other regions,

but, It has 10 principles Burning Man.

And you can't, even if you don't read the principles, you can't help but feel them.

And by day three, I just remember, uh, experiencing one of the ones that

I still feel strongest about, and it's about the gift of giving without

the expectation of reciprocation.

So I went through this journey, um, and on the back of leaving

Bernie, Man, I said, You know what?

I'm done with everything that relates to capitalist society.

I want to go and join a not-for-profit, an ngo.

I wanna do something that's gonna have real meaning and purpose.

And, and a buddy of mine actually said, Listen, before you go ahead and do all of

this, I want you to just read this book.

And the book is called 80,000 Hours, and it is a book about effective altruism.

So, You know, for those listening, it, it's how can you have the most

positive impact on humanity with the 80,000 hours that the average person

has in their entire working career?

And so it takes you, it's a short book and it's free.

I'd highly recommend to anyone listening to read it.

Um, And where I landed on the back of it, and I'll give you one

little anecdote and I'll explain to you why Multiply Mii Exists and

what our mission really is here.

But, uh, the anecdote that really resonates with me is that, you know,

if you are a general practitioner, a gp, a doctor in your lifetime,

on average, you'll save about 12 lives, which is tremendous, right?

I mean, 12 lives, Matt, to save 12 lives.

How, how special is that now if you simply invested $2,000 a.

12 months a year to a malaria fund in West Africa, you'll save

about 5,000 people's lives a year.

And so what it effectively, what I took away from that entire book and the

experience and the decision to stay in the commercial world is that, you know, I had

somewhat of a knack for, you know, for the commercial well then that for me to truly

have deep impact on the world, I wanna sharpen my skill set in a competitive.

And the second you move over to the not-for-profit

space, it's less competitive.

There's not the, it's not this challenging rat race of how do I get ahead?

And so I made the considered decision on the back of wanting to go into

the NGO space to say, You know what?

I'm going to work my ass off and I'm going to be the best version of myself

that I can be, so that when the time is right and you know, financial

security is there, I can really.

The most impact that I can on, on the betterment of humanity.

And so the mission around Multiply mii was when I left that company, when I

left, um, the Amazon business, I asked a couple of the team members that we'd hired

there, like, tell me unapologetically, what did you make at, in, in

corporate Philippines at your highest?

And it was about three times what we were paying.

And not only that, but they were getting healthcare and social security and hmi,

I just said, it doesn't make sense.

We're making a million dollars of profit a year in that, in that Amazon

business, and they're taking salary sacrifice, getting paid, you know,

five bucks an hour, six bucks an hour via PayPal without any of the benefits

or any of the jobs security that they would experience in the Philippines.

And I just said, it doesn't make sense to me.

So the mission around multiply me was to offer all of the benefits.

You would effectively see if you were in the corporate Philippines.

So we offer healthcare and social security and HMO and 13th month and paid leave

and everything that they would get.

Um, but I think what's, what's more for me is that I look@onlinejobs.ph for anyone

who's listening, it's like, I like to call it the gateway drug to finding talent

out of the Philippines where you find talents sort of like just good enough to

deliver data entry and some skill sets.

And if you're lucky, you find some.

Really have talent in there, but ultimately there's levels of talent

that exists that are well beyond that.

And so, you know, when I experienced that for the first time, I just said,

I've got the whole equation wrong.

I was delegating, uh, I was delegating tasks and not

accountability and responsibility to people who could really deliver.

And I would argue far deliver, uh, on a level that, you know, I've never

really even had coworkers deliver at that level anywhere in the world.

And I've worked in, you know, three or four geographies now.

So, Really eye opening.

So anyway, I've gone on a little bit of a rant here, Matt, but, uh, the point, the

point I'm making is it's very easy to get out of bed in the morning knowing that

because we exist in market today, 330 odd people can put food on their tables and,

you know, provide for their families.

And so for me, going back to the start of it, you know, the, that any

metrics around the revenue numbers.

Um, it, it doesn't, it doesn't have meaning and purpose.

And I can do this all day because I know that because we

exist, it, you know, it matters.

It matters not just to me, but to a lot of other people.

That's a really powerful thing.

And I think, uh, the, the ability to get out of bed and be motivated

with a smile on your face, I think is, is one of the things that

so many in the west are missing.

Uh, and I, I, I'm a big, I, I'm slight idealist if I'm honest with you,

but I do think it comes down to this idea of meaning and purpose and just

being really clear on what that is.

You know, why am I here, what am I gonna do?

And all that sort of thing.

So I, I'm really intrigued by your story.

Uh, so thank you for sharing, uh, Yoni about that.

Um, and it's, it's interesting.

I mean, you, you've obviously created these two quite.

Goliath is maybe the wrong phrase.

Do, you know what I mean, but two quite sizeable organizations.

Um, uh, you've got one in the Philippines doing some direct good

two people in the Philippines, but obviously also direct good to the

organizations that use that service.

Right.

It's gotta be a, a a to coin the, um, the Stephen Covey phrase.

It's got to be the win-win, hasn't it?

It's got to, It's gotta work for both parties.

Great man.

Um, how do you.

I'm just thinking of the listener who's listening to the show there.

Um, they're growing their eco or they're in e-commerce.

You know, some of people might have started, some people have been

around like me for a little while.

Um, what are some of the principles that you have learned?

In doing this, um, that can be really helpful.

Um, I, I've got here, like, how do you use process and systems to

help scale businesses like this?

Assess, design, integrate concept, explain what that's all about.

Before I explain that, I wanna just take a, a, a step back or

look at it at sort of 30,000 feet here.

So, you know, none of us, not a single entrepreneur.

Business owner created their business to be a slave to it 168 hours a week.

Right?

Very true.

When you, when you, when you're looking to create or live the entrepreneurial

dream, it's for more freedom, more time and effectively more money.

And I think what typically happens to the average entrepreneur, and

I've been guilty of it myself, is.

You obsess over the delivery and you obsess over how you can

continue to grow and evolve.

And what you sort of miss along the way is that unless you're actually able to,

to delegate, and unless you're able to start to get outside of your business

and bring on the right people or build the right processes, you start to

live, we start to run on their, their e-commerce hamster wheel where, you

know how , you know how I would define it, You know, what does that look like?

You have initial success, right?

So let's say you, you drop, you know, the typical journey.

You start drop shipping and you realize the opportunity, you start

to move into making your own products and you start to see that success.

And maybe you move away from your full-time gig to really accelerate growth.

And then what happens is you just become a victim of your own success because.

The second that you feel like you're gonna take that foot off the

gas, you know, stranded inventory issues around supply chain and

logistics, you know, uh, suppressed ASIN for Amazon seller or whatever.

I mean, what happened to me when I was a drop shipper, I didn't realize

that I couldn't sell knives on my website and do Facebook media buying

and, you know, My site went to shit.

So something, something happened.

So you know, you have a few options that you can take at that point.

And it might be imploding, which I think a lot of, a lot of

e-commerce entrepreneurs will do.

Or you can sell your business.

Yeah, yeah.

Or you, or you can sell your business.

Um, which.

Effectively, you know, when we talk about selling your business, it can be great.

It's probably not the best time right now, depending on when this comes out,

it's probably still not gonna be the best time to sell your e-commerce business.

And the last one would be to delegate and elevate.

So really start to hand over that accountability.

So going back to your question, when you look to build systems in your business,

I think the first and most important thing to start considering is, How am I

investing my time and where is it going?

So getting clarity on where your time is going, and then starting to understand

what are the things that I can give ownership and accountability to.

And so a really simple thing that, that I love to recommend to

people is look at your calendar.

Actually document, put every aspect of everything that's happening inside

of your calendar, in inside of it.

So if I'm on this podcast right now, it's in my calendar.

If I'm doing preparation for 30 minutes beforehand, making sure that I have

the right answers and insights, you know, I'm gonna put it in there.

Putting every little bit and then assessing that at the end of the week.

Really understanding, well, how did I invest my time?

Was it meaningful, was it valuable?

And then starting to focus that in.

So, Back to the system.

So . So that's how you can start to remove yourself from your

business as a, as a first step.

But, but when we talk about systems or how we talk about systems inside

of a Escala, systems are effectively the perfect harmony between

people, process, and technology.

And if you don't have all three of those right, then something is gonna

go, something's gonna fall off.

And, and let me just give you a a prime example here.

Most of your listeners here are obviously e-commerce entrepreneurs.

I'm trying to think, uh, if it's not an Amazon example, let's say you are using

something like, um, uh, let's say you're using something like MailChimp, right?

And you want to delegate the email marketing component of your

Shopify website to someone else.

Mm-hmm.

, unless you dictate that inside of MailChimp, you go to this specific email.

A lot of people would just say, Go to MailChimp, deliver the work, build

the SOP around that, and that's great.

But if I stated that, you know, once a month we're creating an email sequence

and there's an abandoned cart sequence, whatever, whatever that is, what I'm

gonna define is who's responsible.

So the copywriter will effectively go into MailChimp and go to X, Y, Z location.

And deliver it at this point in time, once a month on the last Monday of every month.

So connecting the people who's account.

The process, what they need to actually deliver and the technology is, is how

you can start to string it all together.

Whereas a lot of people look at technology as like the panacea, like cool MailChimp,

done, do the MailChimp thing, do the Shopify thing, and, and, and we're good.

But in reality, unless you're really connecting all.

Um, you're not being effective in that.

I mean, I could sit here and really walk you through what Escala's five tier

hierarchy around process methodology is.

I'll let you keep asking questions, but I'd be very happy to sh happy to share

what that looks like so you guys can get an understanding of how to build process.

But, but maybe I'll, uh, I'll let you do your part and ask the questions before

I get Well, no, I'm, I'm, I'm curious to get into it because

I, I, I, I've, I've drawn out the little triangle of people, uh, process and,

um, technology here, and I, I'm, I'm curious in that, Is that something that

I need to think about from day one?

Is that something that I need to think about when I hit five

staff a million in turnover?

Or is that something that I, I think, actually, no, this is once

I've got over 20 staff, then I can think about that kind of thing.

At what point in my journey do I need to start to think about these things?

Yeah, it's a great question, Matt.

So I'd say you should, you should, from from the get go, be thinking

about what's involved in your process.

I don't think from day one you should be documenting absolutely every little

thing that you're doing because ultimately it will change quite significantly over

time as you become more sophisticated and, you know, uh, effort versus reward.

Early, early days, you know, if you're the solopreneur trying to get things off the

ground and you're testing a lot of things and you've got enough time to deliver.

You're all good.

You don't need to be documenting every little thing.

It's only when you start to feel stretched that I think that's when

no one could come into your business and know absolutely everything

that's going on inside of your head.

And so I would say as soon as you start to get to those levels, and,

and a great way to think about is, let's use your example of five people.

Uh, million dollar turnover.

You know, ultimately what happens if someone doesn't show up for work?

Or decides to leave and renders right away.

You know, I don't wanna go to some of those more morbid ones gets hit by a bus.

Uh, but let's say they get hit by a bus . Um,

I had to go.

They didn't.

I.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

But, uh, well, you're from, you're from Liverpool, so you get it.

Um, but, uh, ultimately, If they disappear, then so too does that

output and so you are left effectively having to pick up the pieces, unsure

of or effectively losing where you are having the most impact.

So I would say as soon as you become a little bit stretched,

That's when you should start enacting some of these processes.

But you wanna actually get to them sooner rather than later.

And it doesn't need to be.

And I'll share with you guys, you know, in a little bit about our

methodology and how we approach it.

It doesn't need to be at a scholar level, you know, that's, that's management

consulting level and that's, you know, that's in a league of its own, starting

with a word dark or an Excel dark.

Simply defining everything.

That's great because ultimately you are simply trying to unlock the

keys so that you can effectively achieve more time in your day, which

is just not a replenishable asset.

So I wanna build more time in my day so that I can focus on the things

that are gonna have the most impact in my business and in my life.

Uh, so, so I'd say that's definitely how you should be

thinking it from, from the get.

So

what is this methodology, uh, that you, you make reference to?

Yeah, so, so the way we structure it and, and I think there's,

there's lots of mistakes that people make when they, you know, people's like, Yeah,

yeah, yeah, I've got SOPs, I've got SOPs.

Um, and then when you start to look at what those SOPs, those standard

operating procedures really are, they're not at the level they need to be for

someone to effectively understand exactly what's going on in the business.

So Escala's sort of litmus test, if you will, is.

Our expectation once we've delivered a project, which can take 4, 6, 12

months, depending on the size of the business, is that within 15 seconds

of you coming into this documentation, you'll understand exactly what you

need to do up to the most granular detail of what needs to be delivered.

And so, How we effectively structure that is we look at

a business as core processes.

So what are the four or five core processes that happen

inside of the business?

So just to throw a few examples out there.

Mm-hmm.

, like for an e-commerce business, product research and development

might be a core process.

Um, you might have as a core process you'd have, um, Brand management would be a core

process and customer, customer support.

Those might be your four core processes.

And then once you understand what those core processes are as they relate to your

business, you start moving to the next layer down, which we call process groups.

So process groups, they comprise of multiple functions that work

together end to end to provide a, you know, effectively.

A solution for that specific function.

So let's take new product discovery, for example.

Um, inside of that new product discovery process group, you might have things

like research and identify new product.

Um, you know, the next sub process or process group might look like,

um, you know, de develop product and then hand over product to

brand management might be the.

Um, process groups.

So you're looking at product research and development, let's say.

Mm-hmm.

, and then inside of that, you'd have new product.

Discovery as one of the process groups.

And then the next layer down, and the way we also approach it is you have like

a, a numbering or a naming convention.

So for product research and development, it might be 1.0, and then new product

discovery, which would be the first stage in the process group under that

core process would be 1.1 new product D.

And 1.2 might be, you know, develop product and 1.3 might be pass on product.

So the next layer down, uh, is now where you start to get a little bit

more visual of what's really happening is what we call the sub-processes.

So inside of the sub-processes.

So again, following the same narrative here from product research and

development is the core process.

New product discovery.

As the process group, a sub-process might be, uh, receive new product ideas.

So inside of that, this is where you start to get into the

granularity on what's happening.

So this would be who's responsible?

So let's say you have a product researcher and a product development person.

Um, this is where you'd actually start to illustrate the process

maps of the decision matrices.

So go into, I'm just gonna use an Amazon example here.

So go into Helium 10, which is a research, uh, tool.

So go in, do you know the product, the product researcher?

We'll go into Helium 10.

The next one will be, they'll look inside of the black box, uh, function

to understand what's the keyword, search term volume, is there appetite for it?

And you'd sort of move along to understand yes, no.

If yes, then continue on.

If no, then it falls down to the next stage.

And, and once you're at that point, that's when we start to go into the

real granularities of what's happening.

Level four is activities or that's effectively like what you're delivering.

So examples would be gather product ideas from Helium, Ken's

Black box, like I just mentioned.

It would be create a new task inside of your project management tool, like

click up on Monday or Trello or Son.

It would add product details to the research specifications.

It would be all of the more detailed instructions of how you actually

approached it, and then the very.

Uh, stage is I, I would say what most people would define as their SOPs, where

that has the full working instructions of every single stage inside of.

The process of what's done under that subcategory of the core processes

to the process groups, to the sub-processes, to the activities.

So working instructions.

So in that you might have video examples for us, we do sort of two to

five minutes, no longer of a a loom video if it's something that's more

complicated or screenshots or written instructions as a combination with those

screenshots or with those videos and.

You.

I mean, again, it's a little bit tougher to do this where you're

just listening at home without having sort of the visual aid.

But if you can imagine if I'm looking for the first time inside

of the product research component.

Of a business or I'm like, Okay, I have no idea what product I wanna

bring to market, and I've never worked in a business before, but I

came from another eCommerce business.

Well, I know, Okay, I'm gonna look in the product research function and then

I'm gonna go to new product discovery.

And then from there I'm gonna go to the sub process that has received new

product idea and then I'll be able to go, So I'm following 1.0, then 1.1,

then 1.1 0.1 will be so you sort of follow down the visual hierarchy until

you get to the working instructions.

Again, with the litmus test being in 15 seconds, can we figure out

exactly what needs to be done?

You saw you sort of followed this journey all the way down to

getting to the, the, the granular details of what needs to be done.

So I know that's a lot that I've just, uh, sort of thrown at you there,

Matt.

No, it's, it's, um, it's super helpful.

I've made lots of notes, Yi, which is always a good sign.

Uh, and I like the idea of, um, you're starting very, High level, aren't you?

You're breaking things down into more and more detail as you, as you

go through that and understand that.

And so when you go into a car, I'm, I'm, I'm me, I'm just

circling back to something

that you said.

Just let me, let me, let me just, uh, share with you on that and you highlighted

a really important point that I hope everyone takes away from this is that,

One of the number one mistakes that people make when building process is they take

what we define as a bottom up approach, where you'll have a specific process

and you just build out that process.

So let's say we're talking about how we recorded this podcast, and let's say

going to Riverside, record the podcast, ask the questions, go through it, but.

What you've failed to understand is what is the overarching

complexity of creating the podcast?

Well, there's a research team, and that research team connects with Matt to give

him the information to ask the right.

So if you're not looking at it from a high level first and how it

all breaks down, then what you're effectively doing is you're missing.

Key deliverables along the way.

And so taking that approach of the high level and understanding how does

everything integrate inside of your business is paramount to seeing the

success of building out effective process.

Sorry to cut you off, but, but you really No, no, no.

You go for it.

It's a light bulb, uh, moment for, for me to share with the, the listeners.

No, no, it's

great.

And it, it is, it's an interesting thing that you said.

And the thing which intrigues me is something that you kind of hitting

your comments, uh, earlier on, uh, with scholarly, you were talking about how

this is like a, this could be a 12 month.

Um, and so this is not, this is not me sitting down to a Google

Doc one night and hammering it all out in an hour and a half.

Is it, This is, um, this is quite, this is quite, uh, involved work,

uh, by the sounds of things.

So what do I do?

Y I I I get the idea of processes and you, and as you were talking,

I dunno if you remember the book, um, or ever read it, you reminded

me as you were talking of the, the book, The EMyth by Michael Gerber Do.

You know what I mean?

Say that it's.

It's just this, this is sort of the modern version.

And then obviously he uses McDonald's as a great example of, of, of a very scalable

business because they have mapped their processes to the point that teenagers,

you know, who are having a bit of a cob on that day can still work the system.

Right.

And you, and you go and that's genius.

I understand it.

How do you allow for, um, Uh, flare for Do.

You know, what I mean?

That sort of, that creative spark or that, that sort of slight tangent, that

leads to something quite interesting.

Um, I think from, for someone who's quite process orientated, this is, this is a

beautiful thing for someone that just likes to be, you know, Flower, Flower

is the wrong word, but very spontaneous.

Um, this is almost like putting them in jail, uh, kind of conversations.

How do I, how does, how do I allow for that?

How do I build that into

the system?

Yeah.

Great.

Great question there.

So, I think the way you need to frame it is, While you're building out all

of these processes, there's another component that's connected to this.

So when I look at a Escala, we sort of take two tracks around scaling

businesses or helping build them for exit.

Operationally.

We have the, uh, process optimization.

Can we do this more effectively?

Is there a better way?

Is there.

You know, is there a way where we can reduce the operating costs by, by being

more intelligent on how we structure it?

And the other is the org strategy.

So who do you need, when do you need them?

And one of the fundamental things here is building the accountabilities

and responsibilities of each of the team members that you

bring into the organization.

So, If you are building it in a way where there's, again, this is, you know,

I mean this is stuff that I live and breathe, obviously, but if you look at

it at the macro level, you always wanna be putting people into the right seats.

The seats where they are going to be most, uh, impassioned.

They're going to love what they do every, every single day.

And so, If you want to create and maintain that flare, then making sure that the

accountabilities and responsibilities delivered to the individual are

aligned with their true skill sets.

And so, You mentioned the EMyth.

I think, um, a book that I found probably more effective than the Emmy, while

it's a great one, is Traction eos, if you're familiar, I am very much so.

That sort of takes into a lot more of the account of how you can sort of

structure this inside of a business between sort of 10 and 250 people.

So I'd say coming back to it all, if you're a company that you only

want to be 3, 5, 10 people building out these processes, it's not gonna.

Paramount to the success of your business.

Unless there's critical points where you're gonna lose, uh, key personnel

who are gonna get hit by buses all the time, uh, you know, that's,

that's, that's gonna be a problem.

Right.

But if it, if your ambition is not to have 300 and.

Whatever team members, then it's about having focused, uh, attention

on how far you want to take it.

Um, mm-hmm.

for me, you know, we can't run if we don't have that level of documentation.

So you can build that creativity and flare into the accountabilities

and responsibilities, uh, inside of those processes.

And I'd also say the processes are used as a guide.

It's not necessarily.

Gospel.

It's not about you do this task after this task, after this task.

Like when we're building, uh, KPIs and incentive programs.

A big component of that is about hitting specialized projects or, you know, we, we

run on EOS internally, so making sure that our rocks align with the high level rocks

are effectively 90 day rolling goals.

And you have a scorecard.

Each week, you make sure to see whether you're on track or off

track in achieving those goals as they relate to that one year plan.

Let let, let's give that example.

So again, you build the business strategy for the 12 months forward and you

work backwards in how you achieve it.

And so as long as they're hitting those goals, then that's what's paramount.

And so they shouldn't be sort of put in their box, but they'll always come

back to the processes to make sure that it's being delivered correctly.

Mm.

That's

very good, very good.

Listen, Yoni, I, I'm just getting started.

I'm just getting warmed up.

I have so many questions, but I'm also aware of time.

Yoni, for those listening to the show, how do they reach out to you?

How do they connect with you?

If they've got any questions, which I'm sure they have all of.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Well, if you're specifically looking at a Escala or Multiply Mii as

solutions that are interesting to you, um, I delegate accountabilities

to much more intelligent people than I am , so, so I'd say check out

multiplymii.com or we are at Escala.com.

And through that you can get on a call with either Cat

who's our director of business.

Development or client engagement rather, or Lippy, my co-founder who will take

you on a discovery call and really get to the core of how we can help.

Um, if you're specifically looking to connect with me, which I welcome and

invite, it's just my name at either one of those websites, multiplymii.com or

weareescala.com.

I'm pretty active on LinkedIn.

Um, you can add me on Facebook or I am absolutely terrible there.

So, uh, apologies in advance if that's where you're trying to find me.

, Matt Edmundson: you're the wrong age

Uh, so all the stats tell me I'm too young.

What's the, what's the, what's the age range?

Yeah, to way too young I think.

Don't you have to be like over 45 or something now for Facebook?

Uh,

Sorry guys.

I . Yeah,

Instagram won't say.

We will of course link to Yoni and uh, his LinkedIn profile and to, weareescala.com.

And, uh, Multiply Mii.

We will put all of those links in the show notes of course, as well,

so you can also check those out

eCommercepodcast.net.

Uh, Yoni thank you so much for being on the show.

Honestly, pages of notes.

Mainly more questions.

Uh, and I, I'm, it is great when you have these conversations because it just gets

the old gray matter thinking, doesn't it?

And you just kinda like, Oh, that's, that's interesting.

And I, I valued the conversation about meaning as well as, uh, this

whole conversation about process.

So thank you so much for being with.

Thank you so much for having me.

And yeah, if, uh, anyone's been listening in for this long, I hope, uh, you got

a little bit of value out of all the nonsense that I, uh, typically, uh, talk

. Matt Edmundson: Thanks Yoni.

So there you have it.

Great mate.

What a great conversation.

Huge.

Thanks again to Yi for joining me today.

And also, let me give another big shout out to today's show.

Sponsor the ecommercec cohort, uh, head over to eCommercecohort.com

for more information about this new type of membership and community

that you can, should, uh, join now.

Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcast from because we

have some great conversations lined up and I don't want you to miss.

Any of them, and in case no one has told you today, you my friend, are awesome.

Utterly, utterly awesome.

The E-Commerce podcast is produced by Aurion Media.

You can find our entire archive of episodes on your favorite podcast app.

The team that makes this show possible is, Sadaf Beynon, Josh

Catchpole,Estella Robin, and Tim Johnson.

Uh, theme song has been written by my good self, my incredible son.

Uh, and if you would like to know, uh, more, uh, no more read the show notes

and transcripts, I suppose it in effect what I'm trying to say, uh, you can

get them full free head over to our website, eCommercepodcast.net where you

can also sign up for our newsletter.

So that's it for me.

Thank you so.

For joining me.

Have a fantastic week.

I will see you next time.

Bye for