w/ Devyn Merklin, XScale
Devyn Merklin, former CMO of Livingood Daily, shares the raw truth behind scaling a supplement brand to $70M in annual revenue. From relentless testing to mastering Shopify funnels, Devyn provides a thoughtful analysis of the strategies that worked, the mistakes that taught valuable lessons, and how brands can apply these insights to their own growth journeys.
People
Brands
Apps
Tools
Services
Kurt Elster
This episode is sponsored in part by Boost Commerce. Imagine a search bar that's actually smart, one that helps your customers find what they're looking for without frustration. That's what Boost AI Search and Filter is all about. It's like giving your store a personal shopper right in the search bar. With Boost, shoppers can filter by everything from size to rating. So finding that perfect product is easy. and the frequently bought together and related items recommendations are tailored to your store, giving customers a reason to add more to their carts. Boost even lets you spotlight bestsellers or new arrivals using powerful merchandising tools No coding skills needed. And if you ever do need support, their dedicated team has your back. Ready to make your store smarter? New customers can use the code Kurt. That's K-U-R-T. to get thirty percent off for their first six months. Head to the Shopify App Store, start your 14 day free trial of Boost AI Search and Filter today. To Welcome back to the unofficial Shopify Podcast. I'm your host, Kurt Ulster. Jack Nasty. And previously on the show, we heard about uh my my jaunt to Colorado for Smart Marketer Live. And I met a lot of interesting Entrepreneurs, e-commerce merchants, marketers there. And one of them who was in that episode was Devin Merklin. And talking to him, he's a young guy who's had quite the e-commerce career and interesting experience already. having helped Living Good Daily grow to seventy million annual before leaving to start his own brands. And now he's like on his you know third, fourth venture. But all kinds of interesting experience from this gentleman and I want to hear about it. We're going to dig deep and figure out what what has worked for him that you can apply to your own business. and maybe what hasn't worked or should be avoided. Devin, thank you for joining us. Welcome back. Yeah. Thanks for having me, Kurt. My pleasure. All right, so I want to know how'd you first get attracted to e-commerce? What's the thing? When, how, what, what's going on there?
Devyn Merklyn
Yeah, yeah. Back in college, um I was never really a good student. I'd always try and game the system and look at the syllabus and just try and figure out what is the highest weighted thing I should be doing to get the grade that I needed to just get through the class. Um, really the thing that I was interested in was just getting through the classes because I always viewed school as like, hey, this is just temporary. And I don't think the things that I'm learning here are gonna directly apply for what I wanna do. Maybe if I was becoming an engineer. it'd make more sense or like a scientist, it'd make more sense. But I was always interested in business. Um I had a grandmother that was a CFO and an accountant. I did not want to become an accountant. That is extremely boring. So I kind of, you know, navigated business and figured, I want to be in marketing. That seems fun and it seems like it's always going to be something. Um, so The things that I was learning in college didn't directly apply essentially to what I wanted to do. So I'll just try and get through it as fast as possible. Outside of the classroom. Um, I started to dig into entrepreneurship a little bit by looking at um a I guess he would be considered an influencer, but a CEO named Randall Pitch. who owned a apparel company called LiftFit Apparel, which is all like lifestyle apparel, and I think it's still around. Um, but I was really just fascinated by him. Um his kind of like style and his ethos kind of matched my own at the time. And um he was kind of the first person that I watched that was doing the entrepreneur stuff and building the business. And I decided, hey, I want to do that. I don't know what like marketing jobs are outside of college, but you know what he's doing is super cool, super interesting, super free. And so I'm going to start an apparel company that's kind of around that. So outside of the classroom, that's where I kind of began is figuring out how to build a e-commerce apparel brand.
Kurt Elster
What platform was this on? This was on Wix. Yeah. Where's my Ew button? Ew. When did you find Shopify? When did you get religion?
Devyn Merklyn
Oh my gosh. Uh I didn't uh no I knew of Shopify at the time, but I was on college budget. So I was like, I need the cheapest software that I can find. And we would make the t-shirts in our uh student apartment. And then ship them out. And it wasn't until we got a little bit more wiser there's uh that print on demand software called Printful. Then we would we'd get the orders in through Wix. And then we'd take all the orders and then upload them into Printful because they didn't have a direct integration.
Kurt Elster
It's gonna say Shopify just integrates with Printful. Exactly.
Devyn Merklyn
It's so easy now.
Kurt Elster
Just do it on autopilot.
Devyn Merklyn
Yeah, that's that's how we went about it.
Kurt Elster
So, okay, and the this apparel brand, what was the name of this?
Devyn Merklyn
This was Merky's apparel.
Kurt Elster
Merkey's as in Devin Merklin.
Devyn Merklyn
Yeah, so it was a a mixture of my last name and then um my cousin is actually poopies from Jackass 4 and So your cousin is Poopies? Yep, Poopy. Mm-hmm. Okay. No follow up There's there's a totals there's a story to his name, but it probably I'm sure there is. Yeah, it's it's a good one. Um but I I flew out to California as is probably the summer before I decided to start the brand. And I was I was really, I was young, I was just really infatuated by his lifestyle. He was on, um, at the time, he was on a show called Who Is Job? Who is J O B, Jamie O'Brien, professional surfer. And, you know, the you know, star whatever it is, star power, he walks around and it's like, whoa, he's doing these big things. Um And so I was intrigued, and he always talked about lifestyle and he looks so free. And I'm like, okay, that's what I want the brand to be. Mixture of my last name, Poopy's, so murky's. It's gonna be a lifestyle brand that's all about, you know, free and doing your own thing.
Kurt Elster
Those are good businesses to learn with though. I mean, that was my first my first entrepreneurial venture was selling uh t-shirts I made in a dorm room on eBay. It was before Shopify was even around. So after you leave college and you're like, Mercades was cool, I learned a lot, but not gonna continue with it, where do you go from there?
Devyn Merklyn
Yeah, I'd I do whatever any other college student would do. You start looking for jobs. I applied to eighty-seven different jobs. It was all through like Indeed. Um, I don't think I did any on LinkedIn, but other kind of softwares like that had 87 different applications and cover letters and all that kind of stuff, and I heard back from three. Um one was a um unpaid internship. The other was a crawl space company out of Charlotte, North Carolina that needed a marketing associate to kind of like record
Kurt Elster
testimonial videos of their customers and then record them in the crawl space though, right?
Devyn Merklyn
I hope not. That would be terrible. It just did not seem fun, but I was like, okay, I guess this is what, you know, you go to work your way up the ladder type thing. Um and then the the third one was um uh individual named Blake, Dr. Blake Living Good. And uh he was looking to bring his his uh brick and mortar practice online and he needed kind of like a young marketer to help him figure it out. And um the very first uh sentence of that kind of like job posting was, this is not a J O B. And that spoke to me because I was like, oh.
Kurt Elster
Did it say J-O-B?
Devyn Merklyn
Yeah.
Kurt Elster
I would be so suspicious of that. Yes. Somebody came in like, all right, I got this job posting, but this is not a J-O-B. I'd be like, so you don't pay, right? Like is that Yeah. Like what what about it w did it make it not a job?
Devyn Merklyn
It's so I did some research. Obviously, Dr. Living Good. It's kind of suspicious.
Kurt Elster
Um, there's no way that's a real name.
Devyn Merklyn
Yeah. Totally real name. He's got brother also a doctor. Um he's got I don't even know. He he's got multiple like clinics and things like that. But um This this Dr. Living went a different route. But when I was doing some research, I uh he had a website on Kajabi that he built himself. And he had this video, and I think this video is still out there today. Um, it's him driving is a perfect like emotional VSL. He's like driving in the rain. Somebody's recording him from the passenger seat.
Kurt Elster
VSL.
Devyn Merklyn
Video sales letter? Exactly. Okay. And he's like, he's just talking about uh just his life, his story, what he's gone through and what he wants to do for the world. And I'm like, oh, that spoke to me. Because he was on a mission. It was very mission-driven what he was going after. And um I told him this later, but you know, it things progressed and uh I ended up getting the position as like employee number one. Um I told him, hey, I would have worked for you for free.
Kurt Elster
Obviously I didn't say that, you know, during the initial interviews, but after watching that not a good, not a good negotiation.
Devyn Merklyn
No, no, not at all.
Kurt Elster
And at Living Good, this is the brand that you grew to seventy million annual revenue, right? How?
Devyn Merklyn
I think at the time he had his uh his own his own practice for about eight years, and then January of 2018, I believe, is when he started. um going after this living a daily side, which is supposed to be all online. And he started with his own book. And so he kind of wrote a book about just, you know, real health. It's like a 21-day game plan to get health like naturally. Um and it also tell his story as well. But he started that in January 2018. Um I think that was about rena when I applied. But when I walked across that graduation stage barely um May of twenty eighteen, the very next day is when I started. So the thing that he had for about, you know, five, six months was that book. And he was just trying to figure out how to sell that book.
Kurt Elster
From the book, where do well I'm guessing we end up at supplements.
Devyn Merklyn
We do. We do. So um in his in his clinic, in his practice, he had all of these private label supplements from I think the manufacturer or the um the company is called Designs for Health. Like I think you can really only sell their products. They're really high quality. You can only sell their products if you're like a licensed doctor. Um so he private labeled them and he was selling them in his clinic. Um and he wanted to start this book and go down this real health journey. And then he also had, I think around that time we built that Shopify store out so he could sell those private label products on a Shopify store. But what we were trying to figure out was How do you do that? How do you get customers online to go to your store and purchase things?
Kurt Elster
Yeah, that turns out that's the hard part.
Devyn Merklyn
Yeah, yeah. That's it's always the vision, the fun stuff, the brand, and then you You have to put pen to paper and say, How the heck do I sell all this?
Kurt Elster
How do we get anybody to care? Yeah. So how did you get anybody to care?
Devyn Merklyn
You So um we come from that direct responsey world, like the ClickFunnels and all of that. And um if you're familiar with ClickFunnels, you're familiar with Russell Brunson, and one of the things He's a polarizing figure now. He he is. He is. He I think he's doing more than just click funnel stuff nowadays, but he he's really starting to become a um Kind of a really good, you know, just business influencer, a good marketer. It's a lot different than what he was back in like 2000. To 2018, where he was just trying to sell, sell, sell. Um, but he had these book funnels. It was get this book that he created. He has multiple now, but get this book. For free. Just cover the shipping and handle them.
Kurt Elster
Free plus shipping. And I did I I'm familiar with this funnel because I bought two of his books. Free plus shipping. A audience building that was largely about Where he took like strategies from uh cults. You know, it made it more positive. But I actually I thought that was fairly interesting.
Devyn Merklyn
It was maybe twenty eighteen or twenty nineteen, the funnel hackers live, the big live event that they put on where um They were talking about that. And I remember sitting in the stands just thinking it it actually ended up becoming a big piece of living it daily. But I remember sitting in the stands thinking, Marketing is all just psychology and it pulls from the weirdest places.
Kurt Elster
And what's interesting about is like it it's very cyclical, right? Like you could go back and read Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, you know, a book published a hundred years ago. And you're gonna see Yeah, theory and practice and ideas in that that you'll recognize getting recycled into other things. And like it just keeps going. The snake's just eating its own tail in marketing books forever. But It works. I mean, because some of these things um are you're right, it's psychology. And those things are universal and don't don't change quite as much over time.
Devyn Merklyn
Well actually that book funnel is a huge psychology play. So the way it from a thirty thousand foot view, the way living a daily looks And I'm not divulging any secret here. Um it's you you see this in every business. It just I mean every successful business, just look at it. You'll see these things. It's they've got a front end and they've got a back, and let's simplify it that way. That front end is designed to do what I describe as three things, and you can put different words. Smart marketer does this amazingly. I call it IAS, information, the application of information, supplementation. Everybody's looking for information. Information's everywhere. To do something, to fix something, to solve a problem. And the fact that they get the information from you is a foot in the door. If we had to look at a trust meter from like zero to 100, you could consider information like five percent of that 100%. Then is the application of information. If you can then take that person that gathered that information from you and help them apply the information and get a result out of it, they're gonna have immense trust with you. So that 5% goes to something like 60 or 70 percent. And then a supplementation. Now that you have them, they trust you a little bit more. You just want to keep them going. How do you keep them going? You constantly give them products or courses or teachings or things along those lines. So that book funnel. was actually just grab this free book, get this information. The next steps in those that funnel was like um an immediate kind of like uh what a view of what I just described. The very next step was join the um the lifestyle challenge, which is a 30-day kind of thing that teaches you everything in the book. It teaches you how to get healthy. People are losing weight. They're coming off medications. You're building immense trust with us because They've tried a million other things, but now they just got this result with us. So they trust us. Then the very next step is, hey, grab these supplements. They're going to help you throughout the challenge. And that's the supplementation fee. Now they're taking products that we serve on a monthly or daily basis. And now we've got a really strong customer. It was all just really a psychology play. of just taking somebody from not knowing us at all to really building trust with them and then essentially keeping them fed, supplementing their lifestyle over time.
Kurt Elster
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Devyn Merklyn
Yeah.
Kurt Elster
And so this all ends up on these long sales pages, these direct response pages. And then that ideally gets them they opt into a marketing funnel, and then finally they end up on you know a product detail page days, weeks potentially later, right, from that initial contact point. It's not like they visit the site and immediately buy. I think that's the thing. that people miss is like there is this long process of nurturing that goes on, right?
Devyn Merklyn
That that's one strategy and a lot of e-commerce brands do that where they take you through that really long form sales letter and then they're trying to get you, you know, three days, seven days, thirty days down the road. Um, I would say that we're probably pretty impatient and so we didn't like that strategy. So that that book funnel um The reason that we we liked that so much and that was our bread and butter is because we would we could take somebody and get them to convert almost immediately. rather than having a longer time cycle. So once they converted, now they're on to the next step. Try the lifestyle. Now they're on to the next step. Try the supplements. And if I had to kind of like Trying to remember these numbers here. There's probably a 8% conversion on that landing page for that free book plus ship. Then the very next step for joining the lifestyle, and there's a few different upsells and downsells with that, but if I uh combine them together, it's probably about 15 to 20% of people. that purchased that book would then join that challenge. And then it was maybe 3% of people that would grab the supplements. So with that one funnel, we then created multiple funnels off of that. that would then speak to those customers that would drop off. So if they didn't grab the book, we have obviously retargeting ads that would send you the book. If they didn't grab lifestyle, retargeting ads that would send you the lifestyle, and then so on and so forth.
Kurt Elster
So it it keeps them in the funnel, keeps you top of mind, and ideally maximizes that that conversion rate, that that cut average customer lifetime value. It's uh you know hearing it from you know the the postmortem perspective, it's like, oh well this all seems so obvious, of course. That's how we should do it, right? But it is it's harder than that because the catch is You gotta figure out the offer and you're probably not gonna get it right on the first go. And so there's a lot of trial and error and a lot of just like just try when you're trying to get the first one out there, a lot of just searching in the dark. until you get a result. And I think that's the frustrating and hard part.
Devyn Merklyn
Yeah. Yeah. Kurt, that that entire process took two and a half years to figure out. And we were cheese. Yeah. We're we were a product of the I guess you could consider us the COVID boom babies. We're just in the right place at the right time. Um, so three and a half years we're trying to figure out that offer and that funnel. COVID happens, everybody's looking for health solutions. We're able to ten X within thirty days because of that and then ride that growth through on. over the next few years. Um but it it did take us a while to figure out that offer and figure out all the structure of that business because I'm I'm making it sound simple right now. But it's really just testing after testing. I was it for two and a half years until we found something that was looks good.
Kurt Elster
I'm glad you say that because 30 months of and it's not like that's free, you know, Dr. Living Good had to which I still refuse, that's real name. uh had uh had employ you during that time, right, while you're figuring it out and then you're spending on resources and ads to to figure it out along the way. So For a brand that's in that position now, that's just starting out, that needs to figure these things out with their marketing, what advice would you give them?
Devyn Merklyn
Oh my gosh. Uh test and spend. Like even when we even when that offer was looking bad and we were having like um for a free book, you know, we were doing really good if we had a new customer cost per acquisition of like $25. Even when that customer cost per acquisition was like $40, we had to continue to spend and test and figure things out. Um, I think that's the only way we we got through it. Uh a lot of brands, like they hear this stuff and Um we'll get some people through the door, uh some brands through the door, and they're expecting like immediate results. Like if honestly, if I if I knew everything about your brand and knew all this stuff. Why would I be doing it for everybody else? It's about figuring it out and testing and figuring what what's gonna work for you. And um honestly, like some brands, figure it out right away and they have an offer. Like there's one brand right now they're in like the um the small pet space and we figured out their offer within It was less than 30 days. But now the problem is it's really hard to scale. So we need to figure out all the other pieces to it. And there's other brands where we're still testing offers. It's been three months and we're still cycling through offers to figure out what's going to convert the best and bring the most favorable numbers. So if I had to give any advice to anybody, it's just test, test, test, test, test. And don't stop testing until you get some really favorable numbers.
Kurt Elster
It's straightforward, but how do you how do you get the initial ideas? How do you come up with that initial plan? I mean, do you follow like uh is there a template you follow? Some methodology, a framework, perhaps?
Devyn Merklyn
Yeah, there there's two methods. Um one is if if you're a new brand, um go copy somebody else. Don't steal everything that they have, but like we did this a lot. There's a a brand called um V Shred. Vince Sant is the influencer. I don't know how big they are. They're they're a huge supplement brand. Um, and we just looked at what they were running because they're doing a lot more revenue than us. They have a lot more ad spend than us. So they probably put a lot more effort into figuring out if this offer works or not. And so we would look at what they did, and they're similar to us, just in a different niche. And we would essentially copy it, get it as close as possible without, you know, infringing on anything copywritten or anything like that. And we put it in our own language, our own branding. And the way we'd go about that is like we would take out our credit card and go through their entire sales process. We'd look at who are they using for support. Um, how many emails do they send? How many text messages do they send? What's the pricing on their offers? Like, and then we would just go copy it and see if it works for us. And we'd make some tweaks to see if we can get it. And if we can't get it, all right, shelve it, go to the next one. Then for brands that are a little bit more established and know their audience, it's figuring out what problems does your audience have? And can you provide an easy solution that they can get a result with? Right? And there's luxury brands out there that that's not really a thing. I try and stay away from those. I don't know how to speak to them. But for the brands that are out there building a business, building a product that solves a problem, then really speak to that problem. And don't be afraid to twist the knife a little bit. Agitate the pain. Exactly. Exactly. I always looked at it as if I don't get you to take out your wallet, then I'm not going to be able to change your life. And that's that's 100% true because a lot of people will just take things for granted and not go through the process. But if I can get you to make some kind of commitment to me, like we we hold money dearly, if you make some kind of commitment to me, then I know you're gonna go through with it. And so I just gotta figure out how to twist that knife a little bit, make you actually feel that pain, and then make that commitment. So then you can solve that problem. Because we're just commerce.
Kurt Elster
You'd mentioned, you know, sometimes you start working with a brand and they expect immediate results. What are some of the the other misconceptions people have?
Devyn Merklyn
A lot of the other misconceptions come from e-commerce brands that hear about this direct response space and then want to jump right into the direct response space. Honestly, there's some brands out there. That you just need to stay away from it. You're focused too much on your branding and how things look, the color and the radius of the corners of a button That you're not built for the direct response space. The direct response space is fast, loud, dirty. Like we're just trying to we're trying to get the conversion at the end of the day. Um, and there's some brands out there that I've talked to that, oh my gosh, this, you know, this company is running this offer and they're doing it this way. And I just look at their brand, I'm like, you guys aren't built for that. Like that, I'm I like it's just not for you guys. It's not what you're doing. You're you're gonna win like following more of a model that's within branding rather than direct response.
Kurt Elster
So that's probably another thing that For you, what excludes someone from being a good fit for a a direct response sales funnel?
Devyn Merklyn
Um honestly Too is too pretty the answer? No, it's not too pretty. Um if they're too they're not willing they're not as willing to take big risk and move quick. You gotta move really quick. We we throw something up and you know it could be a beautiful landing page and a funnel. I've got zero attachments to that stuff now after going through what I went through. over the years. Um and you might be really tied to it and you're like, oh I gotta get this to work and the numbers just don't work. We gotta tear it down and forget about it and go on to the next thing. And there's been a lot of brands that I've seen that are just they're attached to the way something looks or the way something feels or what they think it could do. You gotta tear it down and move on to the next thing. It's all about speed.
Kurt Elster
So you've been doing this pre-pandemic since pre-pandemic. Are there any tactics you think don't work like they used to?
Devyn Merklyn
Mm. Yeah, I think um uh webinars and master classes are starting to die down a little bit. We had a lot of success with um uh what we would call masterclass and webinars and um docu-series and things like that, where I don't think uh Depending on the audience out there, if it's a younger demographic, probably 55 and below, those don't work as well as they used to, obviously. I think uh introductions of like TikTok and YouTube Reels and all that kind of stuff, or YouTube Shorts, sorry, um, and all that kind of stuff has kind of hurt. That uh strategy, just because we're we're we're all about quickness now. We want to scroll through and see that kind of content. I think it is starting to take a turn, like we said earlier, like it's cyclical and people are paying attention more to longer form content. But as of right now, I just I haven't seen it work. But maybe, you know, a year from now, two years from now when it comes back around, it'll be a thing again.
Kurt Elster
Yeah. I think current you're right. It just attendance rates on webinars where I have been a guest if you're seeing them just go down. And it's because everybody like sign up just so they get the link to the replay later. Right. And then when I have the replay, I'm probably not even going to watch it. And so the yeah, the webinar's tough. It's just it's different now. Um it's and also it it's just it's less video became table stakes as opposed to like live video was a much more attractive thing in the past. Now it's just not unusual. So you're no longer you're no longer with Living Good Daily. You left. It sounded like you had a good thing going. Why leave?
Devyn Merklyn
Um, well, you know, I started out in college being really interested in entrepreneurship and Honestly, the the reason I stayed with Living Good Daily for so long, I think it was six, seven years. I stayed with them for so long is because I was an entrepreneur. I was employee number one. I got to, you know pioneer all the stuff, figure out the strategies, test, blow stuff up, have some wins, etc. Like I I felt all that as if I was an entrepreneur. And as we start to grow, things need to get more corporate. They need to get more structured. It's just the name of the game. You can try and hold on to that. um early stages entrepreneurship feel for so long. But if you really want to systematize things, you gotta go a little bit more towards the corporate side. And you know I I never as I was young, I never saw myself as just being, you know, just an employee or something along those those lines. And I don't think I was viewed at that as that, but it was an internal battle that I felt. Um, because I would do these like smaller ventures while we're building Living and Daily, and I got immense joy of like being in the Wii's and figuring stuff out and growing the thing that when uh January of this past year came around, I kind of had to make a decision. Cause we were looking to grow a lot more. I don't maybe they did uh hundred million this year, who knows? I know we're pacing 70. Um and I knew what what it would take in order to do that. And it would take a lot more structure, a lot more kind of systems and things like that. And I didn't see myself and what I wanted out of life within living a daily. I wanted to go do the entrepreneurship, like go find the unknown and figure stuff out. And so I had to make a rough decision of do I stay here? I love everybody that's a part of this company. Got zero bad blood with anybody. I love what we're doing for the world. Or do I take this wild risk and go figure stuff out all over again?
Kurt Elster
What do you work where'd you go from there? What are you working on now? What were you working on in between? I mean you started in twenty eighteen, it's only Yeah, so well while we were building that I had like multiple ventures throughout the um period.
Devyn Merklyn
There's one there's one point in time there we're we're like a year into living a daily. I think it was our first year we did like two hundred and fifty K in revenue, nothing spectacular. And I went off and started my own supplement brand. And then I met with Dr. Livington and we're like, okay, that's a little weird. It's kind of like a competitor. Let's let's shelve that. Um so I shelved that and then I found an influencer that had his own um kind of like e-commerce store where he was selling t-shirts and he was a YouTuber. And he was um he was like uh showing people how to modify their car. And every now and then he'd do t-shirt drop and he would drive traffic so they'd go buy t-shirt. I think the most he was doing was maybe like 40k, 45k in a year. Um and this is when we really started to hit some scale and I started to get a little bit more free time for myself at Living A Daily. And I wanted to take something that I'm really passionate about, like hobby-wise. being cars and kind of turned that into business. And so um I reached out to him. I said, hey, can I help you with this e-commerce thing? He's like, yeah. And just send me all the passwords and stuff. And so I like ran a um uh a mini like Black Friday, Cyber Monday sale, got a little success. I think instead of doing a $3,000 month, he did like a $4,500 month. And then December I saw a lot of these brands popping up doing these car giveaways. I'm really interested in that. And I'm like, hey, let's do something extremely niche to really test and see if this is like a good idea. So you had this exhaust that was on his car. Um and like, okay, let's see if we can give that thing away.
Kurt Elster
Like let's see if there's a what was the car?
Devyn Merklyn
It was uh two thousand sixteen Volkswagen GTI.
Kurt Elster
Okay. Yeah, if the people who are into Volkswagens will be very excited about this. But again, it's like You have to be into cars, you have to be into this specific car, you have to own this specific car, and then you have to want this exhaust. So you really Really laser focused that offer.
Devyn Merklyn
It's super niche. I was like, okay, there's not a lot of risk here. We don't have to go buy a car or anything. You're just pulling it off your car. And it's used. So like less people want it.
Kurt Elster
So you're gonna go when you rephrase it as, hey, we're giving away my used muffler. Less attractive.
Devyn Merklyn
It's like, oh, okay, no, I don't want that.
Kurt Elster
This thing better be titanium and custom.
Devyn Merklyn
Yeah, I think it was I won't remember the brand right now. Um, but we we ran a giveaway model where you know it's one of those things where you you purchase more, you get more entries into the giveaway.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, it works like a raffle.
Devyn Merklyn
Yeah, yeah. It it did extremely well.
Kurt Elster
Um, we've run a whole bunch of them for several brands, but maybe for Hoonigan, they they've given away at least ten cars. And I got to see it and it quite incredible. But when it's like, hey, buy a t-shirt, you get a chance to win a car, that's pretty it it's an attractive offer Yeah, yeah, it's like why not? I need a t-shirt anyways. And was that on Shopify?
Devyn Merklyn
That was on Shopify, yep.
Kurt Elster
Did you use any special software for it? Viral sweeps. I used that's what we used on on uh Hoonigan for this giveaway we used viral sweep. That's a good one.
Devyn Merklyn
We copied uh Hoonigan for one of ours. We saw um what you guys were doing. Uh I forget which giveaway it was. Yeah, we we try to lay the store out and the collection page out just like in I'm proud.
Kurt Elster
Yeah. I've managed that store since twenty seventeen. Still manage it.
Devyn Merklyn
But we we tested out that giveaway thing and it it doubled revenue for December, which is like a pretty solid Yeah, doubled. I'll take it. And then uh January, what what I unknowingly did, and I think we all do this as marketers, is like we have a good idea and the idea works and then you blow up operations. Blew up operations because he was shipping out all of the inventory from his barn. Um and then we took January to move everything to printful, printful version two now. Um And that way he didn't have to fulfill these orders and he could just focus on the content.
Kurt Elster
Hopefully we're finally on Shopify instead of Wix.
Devyn Merklyn
We're we're on Shopify now
Kurt Elster
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Devyn Merklyn
That following month, February, I forget which year, he bought a car, like it was an old Mazda 3 speed for like four grand. Or it was like $3,800 to be exact. And then we launched our first car giveaway. And that month we did, so the previous month, January or December, we did about 8,000 bucks. January we did 3,000. Uh February, we did $35,000 in revenue. It's awesome for going from $3,000 to $35,000. I was like, oh, we're on to something. And so we kind of kept that pace going, selling t-shirts and stuff like that. Eventually we get into automotive parts, um, things of that nature. And that was kind of something that I was doing like on the side, just for fun, while we're going, living it daily. And um That was kind of like one venture that was just kind of in motion. And then when I decided to leave uh Living at Daily, I wanted to create an agency. Um more of like a growth like scaling partner that was more revolved around doing exactly what I did for Dr. Living Good. Exactly what I did for Cameron was his name, the owner of the brand, and kind of teach brands and companies these ways of scaling. It's less about Let me just work on your ads or let me just work on your email. It's more like let's figure out the strategy. Let's build the funnels. Let's build the the process to help you scale.
Kurt Elster
So few people actually do this. They don't realize that they don't have a funnel, that it's like they have a website, they have ads, they have emails, but those things just aren't and they're branded. But they're not necessarily working together in a funnel. It doesn't have like a a strategic path that you're supposed to move through it. That's the missing piece, right? And I think the The intimidation factor there is I have to make a landing page and I have to make content and I have to make a decision on like this is the hero product that we are going to try to get people to buy initially. And you know, most brands don't sell a single product. And most brands have, you know, probably like one to three hero products in addition to the rest of the catalog. Or, you know, if you're in apparel, then you're like just cycling through stuff seasonally. And so there's all kinds of excuses you can make as to why you Yeah, that's great for Devin and and Dr. Feel Good, but not sorry, Dr. Living Good. But not me, my brand is special indifferent. You know, I I can't do it, it won't work. And that's fine, but just accept that like you you are leaving money on the table there By because that the landing page, I swear, if you don't don't have landing pages for offers promos, it they'll still work, but it's just not going to be as optimized.
Devyn Merklyn
Yeah. Yeah. And that's what we found too. When you when you take the time to build out, like even if you're not doing direct response stuff, right? If you take the time to build out just a landing page for the customer that you're trying to attract. It converts so much better than sending somebody to a product page. Because the very first thing we see on a product page is product image on the left, title, description, or however you have it laid out, price button. Right? They got the skew in there. Yeah, exactly. It's it's like uh when you build a actual landing page, a page devoted to the customer, you can say a lot more things and help them get over any kind of like barriers that they might feel before they have that initial scare from the price. I I don't understand why we do this. Like the price is right there. Like that's usually per people's first objection. It's like, oh I don't want to spend that. It's like let me walk you through a page a little bit, maybe show you a video. And maybe kind of get you over that that fear a little bit before you s get the sticker shock.
Kurt Elster
That's I'm in my head like I'm writing notes down because I'm like, man, I get I used to have a lead magnet, I used to have a funnel, I used to have marketing automation, and over time I just started slowly taking it apart until I didn't even have it anymore. And I'm like, man, I gotta do it again. And it was just because of the same Yeah, the same problem everybody falls into. You're like, well, I'll do that later. Like, well, I don't actually need that right now. And like, no, what the hell was I thinking?
Devyn Merklyn
There there's definitely more fun with it. Um, I think, you know, warm customers, hot customers. You know, they just want to buy the thing. They're used to you. They just want to buy the thing, and that's where the product page comes in. But uh cold people, it's like um we just treat it as this cold interaction. Go to my product page, buy my thing, rather than buyer get out. Yeah, exactly.
Kurt Elster
I mean if somebody walked in a s your retail store and you're like, hey, buyer get out, it wouldn't work real well.
Devyn Merklyn
Exactly. It's like you want to create an experience. You want to build trust with that person and tell them why they should buy your product.
Kurt Elster
Well, because otherwise you'll have to get out. I told you. There's two options. Yeah that but yeah that is you're right when you just like plop someone into a product detail page that is essentially what's happening as opposed to you know you need someone to sell you right I'm saying like I'm here but I need you to help me make that purchase decision. Otherwise this This isn't happening, right? Like I will come to my senses and not make that purchase, you know, RoboCop t-shirt, whatever the heck I'm on. But um So you've worked in a range of niches. Like auto parts, that's that's my bread and butter, right? But that aftermarket auto is really tough because of very technical. And then supplements, tough because it's it's got a lot of regulation around it, right? Like you don't want to offend the FDA, the FTC, et cetera. And so having worked in multiple brands, um I don't even know what my question is. Compare and contrast. Because just all you went from supplement to auto. They're very different, but you clearly have a lot of experience in both.
Devyn Merklyn
Yeah, it it I to be honest, I love supplement a lot more. And um it it was is more than just supplement and auto. It was like uh living a daily was like 90% like female audience and female customers. Where uh Karma Speed is the brand and uh Offset, which is another, is like 90% male.
Kurt Elster
Offset three F's, right?
Devyn Merklyn
Yeah, exactly. Um and you could sell something multiple times over here with supplements. It's usually just one sale, one and done with auto parts, unless they need to buy more things from you. And that's usually not every 30 days. That's usually once every six months or so. Um the marketing opportunities on supplements is so much more. There's so many more creative things that you can do. Versus the auto industry, it's like you're selling somebody else's product, you're dictated by map, you can't really get as crazy with the funnels and the offers and things like that. It's just really hard to scale. It's um what I found at least is like if you've got an influence or some kind of audience that you could tap into, then you could get a share of that market. But other than that, it's like you're playing the same game as a bunch of other people. And it's hard to differentiate yourself without, you know, just niching down into like one, you know, type of vehicle or one, you know, make or model.
Kurt Elster
So um And then that's tough too 'cause like that that can wax and wane and like the number of those cars on the road can change. Right. And then you're trying to guess as to what the next one's gonna be. And product development R and D for that is so expensive and the liability. It it's a ton of fun and it is just it is a difficult space to be in automotive. Um so okay, what's We're coming to the end of our time together. I want I want some quick wins here. One piece of advice you'd give someone who is just launching their first Shopify store.
Devyn Merklyn
This is something that um we spent a lot of time on and I think it was extremely fruitful outside of other things like SEO that we spent way too much time on. It really didn't apply to us, but was really getting a good understanding of who the heck are we selling to? Who the heck are we talking to? You hear this everywhere, like people talk about it, but I really want to put emphasis on it because I don't think people talk about it enough. But like you need to actually feel who your customer is, the pain points that they have, why they would take out their wallet, what is the I don't know, the bank that they use. Like you just really want to understand that person and how they work psychologically. before you go build a Shopify store or a landing page. Because then who are you building it for? Who are you serving? Right? Then you're just putting stuff on a store. You're just selling things that that's just thing. Great. Go do that. But if you're really trying to build a brand and, you know, build a business that's here for the long run, understand who the heck you're selling to and who you're serving at the end of the day.
Kurt Elster
And then it's impactful advice that until you have been through it and done it, you just won't appreciate. Exactly. You don't. Yeah, consistently in the show, the thing I've noticed is like some of the successful brands that were bootstrapped start by going to local events and they without realizing get this big leg up on other people at the beginning because they are talking face to face with the actual customer. And so they just have a much better sense. Whether or not they're brilliant marketers, entrepreneur, whatever, they will always have a better sense of who their customer is because of that experience for the rest of the business career. And so I absolutely uh I I think you're right.
Devyn Merklyn
Uh it is extremely, extremely powerful what you just said. And whoever's listening this, go back, listen to it again and again and again. Because the like when we work with brands, we have ideas, we have strategies. They have worked in the past. Like, cool, we've got numbers. But if the founder says something, the founder, If that person says something, hey, I think we should try this instead, ears go up, we're listening. Because there's something that a founder knows that whatever marketing strategist or expert thinks they know, the founder just knows better. And I learned this really well with Dr. Living Good. He spent eight years in a clinic, or ten years in a clinic, listening to his ideal customer. And so there's just little words, little nuances that that person knows unconsciously. That anybody else that comes into that business is just not going to know. And it's because they know their customers so well.
Kurt Elster
And so your your current endeavor is X Scale. It's a consultancy. What does Xscale do for people?
Devyn Merklyn
So Xscale, essentially what it was is we fit in between, essay was, I'll get to the punchline. Um we fit in between the one of the two most common um kind of agency, marketing agencies. You've got advertising, which is your front end, you've got communications, which is your back end, email, SMS, things like that. The problem is that they don't talk to each other. And that's the kind of position I served at Living It Daily. It's like we had an agency for advertising. We had an agency for email. But the problem is that they're disjointed. They're all doing their own thing. And I sat in the middle and connected the two. And that's how we had have a lot of success. And so we kind of serve as that piece for other brands. Is they have the agency or maybe it's internal. For email and for ads, and we want to come in between and be the strategist that connects everything together to help you scale up So the reason I said that was, is because that is extremely, extremely hard to scale. You need to have a lot of strategists. in order to kind of, you know, that understand the game that we're playing here in order to um kind of like make that work. And how many Devons can you get, right?
Kurt Elster
Like you know everything, and so now you gotta find junior people that you could coach up. It's it's not easy.
Devyn Merklyn
Yeah, it's it's not even that. It's it's just the um It's just like the people that are just really good at like problem solving and understanding those things. I think there's a lot of skilled individuals out there that have a skill set in this area. There's far better developers out there than me. There's far better marketers and whatever. It's just the strategy in between. It's really hard to to scale that up and um without it getting diluted over time. And so I said was because that was what I intended to do. And finding that it's hard to scale, obviously it's hard. The better route for me was I've been doing this for so long or not compared to other people, but the thing that I enjoy most is actually getting in the weeds and figuring out how to grow this stuff. I don't want to be away from that and grow an agency. I'd rather grow brands. And so we're more dipping our toe into kind of like mergers and acquisitions where we're buying these smaller e-commerce brands that are undermarketed, that are not doing, you know, proper strategies and then implementing these strategies so we can grow them. Have you bought one yet? We are about to close a gut health brand in seven days. Hopefully we're on time. It should be in seven days.
Kurt Elster
So how are you finding these uh ideal candidate businesses to acquire?
Devyn Merklyn
Yeah, I'm simple sell uh uh marketplaces like Flippa. Um what's the other one? By bizonline. com.
Kurt Elster
Um and hair flippers probably a good one.
Devyn Merklyn
Yeah, yeah. I'm actually sub I see one of my um my emails popping up that I have a few newsletters from them. Um, and then uh honestly talking to other like business owners, like, hey, I've got this brand over here, like we have a client right now, he actually does the same thing. He buys these supplement brands. We help him grow them. But he he reached out to me and said, Hey, uh, there's this guy over here that has this brand. He's thinking about selling or doing something with it. Would you be interested? So it's usually a good way to go about it. And we kind of look for undermarketed within that health and wellness space because that's just what um I feel like I'm qualified to know something about. Um and see, you know, just go down that route and see if we can do anything with it.
Kurt Elster
Also, I'd like to note here, you're a car guy. who got into oh you've done engine swaps like real deal car guy yeah and got into aftermarket automotive as websites and then went, you know what? I'm going back to supplements. Yeah.
Devyn Merklyn
It's so much more fun from a business and marketing perspective. I'll always hold like uh some kind of automotive piece to me when it comes to business, but you know, when it comes to like business and marketing, supplements, health and wellness is the way to go for me.
Kurt Elster
Where can we go learn more about you, Devin Merkland?
Devyn Merklyn
Follow me on YouTube, LinkedIn. Um, if you got a business to sell, go to thexscale. com. And uh what what I really appreciate is When you go to these social platforms, like people tell you to go follow me on Instagram or whatever, is like go there and comment some things that you think other people need to learn. It's not just about Like uh Oh, you're game of the algorithm. Not that at all, but seriously, it's like I I I see so much value. Um Ezra says it's a lot. High tides raise all ships. There's so much more value if you know people are in the comments or they're, you know, doing spin-offs and saying things that benefit other people. Because I know when I go watch a video and it's maybe it's a strategy thing or a tactic, I'm also looking in the comments and seeing what other people are saying. And I hate seeing the comments that are just negative or just don't, you know, contribute to the content at all. I'd rather like read the stuff that's like Oh, I didn't think about it that way. Or, hey, I've tried this. How about you try this in a different way? Because I'm selfishly going to go look at those comments and I'm going to take those strategies and apply them myself.
Kurt Elster
I like it. I like the approach. Uh Devin Merklin, X Scale. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. That was a pleasure. Crowdfunding campaigns are great. You can add social proof and urgency to your product pre-orders while reducing risk of failure But with traditional crowdfunding platforms, you're paying high fees and giving away control all while your campaign is lost in a sea of similar offers. It can be frustrating. That's why we built Crowdfunder. The Shopify app that turns your Shopify product pages into your own independent crowdfunding campaigns. We originally created Crowdfunder for our private clients. And it was so successful, we turned it into an app that anyone can use. Today, merchants using Crowdfunders have raised millions collectively. And With Crowdfunder, you'll enjoy real-time tracking, full campaign control, and direct customer engagement. And it's part of the Built for Shopify program, so you know it's easy to use. So say goodbye to high fees and hello to successful store-based crowdfunding. Start your free trial and transform your Shopify store into a pre-order powerhouse today. Search Crowdfunder in the Shopify App Store to get started.