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Welcome to āItās Marketingās Faultā. If you are a marketer, this phrase is familiar to you. Sometimes deserved, often times not.Ā
Donāt worry, you are among marketers and friends here. Letās discuss how to do marketing the right way.Ā
As a side note, in episodes 1 through 37, this was Build That Podcast. The goal of this podcast is to help you learn how to use a podcast to grow your business and expand your influence.Ā If you go back and listen to earlier episode (those before November 2023) you will hear that name. Don't worry--it's good content too. :)
Ramiro Velasco [0:00 - 0:51]: And the overarching response is, oh my God, thank God you're doing ugc and influencer programs and this stuff because that's how we grow all of our accounts. You get it in front of the right people and then they'll go through and shop. Mexico is one of the most influential countries in the world. Like if an influencer goes, hey, buy this, we go, sure. Sounds amazing. We believe in that social proof because it hasn't gone through. What, like, again, we're earlier in the process in the US, what happened? You used to be like that and then suddenly influencers were selling you garbage consistently and then you went, you know what, don't trust influencers anymore. And then the de influencing came around these trends from like 23rd, 23 that were really interesting. So. But right now, where's power? It's like we gotta get in front of people through social proof of advert of existing influencers. Once that probably starts going away in a couple of years, the expectation is then the volume is gonna be coming directly from platforms.
Eric Rutherford [0:51 - 1:14]: Welcome to it's Marketing's Fault, the podcast where we discuss how to do marketing the right way. I'm your host, Eric Rutherford, and I'm thrilled today because I have with me Romero Velasco. He is the founder of Go advance, whose mission is to streamline the process for brands looking to enter Mexico's e commerce landscape. Romero, welcome to the show.
Ramiro Velasco [1:14 - 1:28]: Eric, thank you so much for having me. I'm just going to say right off the bat, these intros always make me uncomfortable because I'm like, like, yeah, that is our mission. But it sounds so, so, you know, over the top of now, you made it sound really good. Like, I believed it. I'm like, yeah, that is what we do.
Eric Rutherford [1:28 - 1:38]: I just, I just read, I read the book. You wrote it. So that's, that's all it is. Yeah, it's. I believed in what you said.
Ramiro Velasco [1:38 - 1:58]: I'll tell you what, like, we're here to talk marketing. Someone that, like, hates promoting their own product is a little bit silly, but yeah, no, that was great. Thank you. No, I'm so glad to be here. By the way, we've been for anyone, like, for everyone that's listening, we were chatting like ten minutes before we started recording. So we're already off to start, like, you guys.
Eric Rutherford [1:58 - 2:21]: Oh, yeah, this is, this is cool and relaxed and, yeah, we're just, we're just chatting. So I gotta, I gotta ask. So what prompted you to create go events? And was there like a eureka moment? Was it like just over time? I'd love to hear sort of, what was that? How did you, what was the motivation behind it?
Ramiro Velasco [2:21 - 4:46]: So there's, there's a practical answer and then there's like the philosophical answer. And I think those, both of them make a lot of sense. I, for a little bit of background, I grew. I studied engineering. I'm not an engineer, but I studied engineering, mechanical. I come, you know, I come out into the real world knowing numbers. And I come, I come back to Mexico after living my entire life abroad. And I join an ad agent, an Amazon agency. Have a really good time there. Sort of figure out, I mean, when you say good time, you're still working, right? But it's good work environment, having a good time, helping clients grow, all this stuff. And there was enough people asking, hey, how do we get into Mexico? And I was going, yeah, we can totally do it. And then went, wait, you know, you can't. There's so many barriers to entry. There's so much bureaucracy. There's so many, like, hoops to jump through that and, and no one is fixing them. Let's just like, I think we can find a spot where we can fix it. So that's like the very practical answer. What I will say, though, is I don't think there ever was this eureka moment. And something that you'll, that anyone that knows me, like, will, like, realizes eventually, is I'm not very good at self diagnosing. I'm not very good at knowing sort of what's going on in my brain. I'm a little, you know, I'm just, I'm just like a dog following a bone. I'm just like, oh, my God, we can do this thing and this thing and this thing, and like, that's it, right? So it came to a point where, you know, my previous bosses, we were talking about, let's do something new. And we actually did an agency in Mexico. So we didn't go straight to the govance business model. Let's do an agency in Mexico. And then as we were working, we realized, wait a second. That other thing is so much better. There's so much noise coming through. I'm so sorry. Can you hear, are you picking up on that? No. Okay. Okay. I love this microphone. And it sort of was like this slow transition of going, hey, let's stop signing clients. Let's start focusing on, on this distribution business model that we came up with because it seems so much more scalable. It seems like there's more of an upside on whatever. But I never had that Eureka this is the move. And I never even had the eureka, let's start a business. It was like, hey, why don't we do this? Like, it felt very natural. Why don't we do this? Let's start going that way. And then I was like, wait, this is a better chance. Let's follow that way. So it's very in line with my, like, mentality for, like, my philosophy on relationships, which is like, what's your goal with the relationship? To hang out until we don't want to hang out anymore. That could be a day. That could be until we die, right? Like, that's ultimately.
Eric Rutherford [4:46 - 4:48]: It just depends.
Ramiro Velasco [4:48 - 5:06]: It just depends. So it's like, what's the plan here? Well, we. We have plans. We have quarterly goals. We have, like, five year plans. We have all this. But when did, like, was there Eureka moment? No, we. It felt natural to keep going down the line, you know, but it feels like it's a perfect storm around me. And I just happened to be here.
Eric Rutherford [5:06 - 5:35]: Oh, that's awesome. And one of the cool things on the Go events website use this language. We bridge the gap between marketing agency and distribution. And I'd love for you to just elaborate on that a little bit more because it sounds like barriers to get into Mexico. So it's more than marketing. It's more than a bunch of things. It sounds like it's a process. Would you just elaborate on that?
Ramiro Velasco [5:35 - 8:01]: Yeah, absolutely. So we bit off more than we could chew. Originally. Originally, you know, we're up to speed now. Everything's working beautifully. I'm so proud of me, my team, the process that we built everything. But we realized two things. One, not like very few people are selling in Mexico. Not enough people are selling in Mexico. So that has to be bridged. And then we realized, once we bridge that gap, you're not going to sell diddly squat unless you're marketing it correctly. But the idea of me entering this unknown market as a seller and going, well, I don't really know anything about my market. And then going to my agency, and then they go, yeah, sure. We can do an extra marketplace for another thousand, 200,000, $3,000. You go, all right. Now the barrier to entry to the country is no longer bureaucracy. Cool gov has dealt with that. It's no longer important. Cool gov has dealt with that. Now it's, I still got to spend thousands, thousands of dollars to try to get this off the ground. And it's like, well, what this leads to is a lot of sellers don't want to enter the country because it's just too much of headache. And it's probably that partly that I have this agency background that's like all I care about is marketing is selling, is getting that top line revenue up. It's like, you know, like, so we went, well, if we can import the product and run it through our marketing pipeline which involves obviously your copy, let's SEO optimize for Amazon. We got a little bit of different ones and you got to make the images and you got to make the a content. But then we were doing that and we went, well, this isn't enough. A lot of volume is income. And then we went, you know what we got to do? Like we started analyzing the trends of how local consumers are shopping and then we went, we have to get them off platform Amazon, Mercado Libre, they're still growing, but the, there's people out there that want to buy stuff and they just don't know it. So then we had to go the UGC route. The meta, they're like trying to get you people in. But it's always been problem solving. It's not like, you know, this is the, listen, we built all the stuff that generally works in the US. It's not getting as results. Next step, let's get the off platform traffic. Oh my God, that's working amazingly. Cool. I guess we're now in, I mean if I'm going to talk corporate, it's an omnichannel turnkey solution. You know what? We hate that. We hate that. It's just if you don't make money, I don't make money. So I got to make you grow.
Eric Rutherford [8:01 - 8:04]: I just got to find the place where people buy your stuff.
Ramiro Velasco [8:04 - 8:29]: Exactly. And if I'm only going to charge because we're very affordable in what we charge because we want to pass those savings on to the consumers, not to our clients, the consumers, I'm like, I got to find the most efficient ways to run this and get results and get sales. Like, so it's a fun engineering Lego problem, sort of. It's a sudoku that we're running here.
Eric Rutherford [8:29 - 9:06]: It sounds like it does. So I gotta, so when companies are, you know, they're thinking about going into Mexico, what are a couple of questions they don't even know they should ask because it sounds like it's a different, it's just a different selling buying environment. Like, and it sounds like very much from your experience like selling in the US does not like it. This doesn't pick up and easily switch over. So what's a couple of questions companies don't even know they need to ask.
Ramiro Velasco [9:06 - 11:04]: Number one, can I get my Amazon reviews on Mexico? And the answer is half the time yes. Half the time no. Because then my question to you is, have you ever had resellers? My question to you is, did you use the right UPC code? Did you. Which is like ATM machine, right? Like, did you, like, does your product set up correctly in the right categories? It's a product allowed to be sell in Mexico. There's so many, like, so much background that will determine whether it's going to be a good process or not, or rather what the timeline is going to be. Listen, if we're coming in and you already have 3000 reviews and we get to put that up, we're going to skyrocket. If you're going to come in, you're going to have no reviews. It's gonna be a slow review acquisition process. Right? Like, that's gonna happen. So that's one, two, and go back to that. Can I sell the product in Mexico? We have different FDA regulations for ease. We have different importing regulations. I worked with someone that does, I work with someone that does vitamins and we were so excited. We're like, this product's gonna take off like crazy. And we tried them and they were delicious. Like, they're incredible. Like, I don't. And then we realized after, like, it was a failure, we realized, wait, people don't need this vitamin here because we have a lot of sun. So it's vitamin D. And we said, we have a lot of sun. This was not a market fit. So we launched with different vitamins of others and it worked. So, like, you know, market fits. Important, consuming. You know, there's people selling. I really, there's products that, like, I keep asking, would I buy this? Would I buy this? And I asked my team what I would you buy this? We take, we bring samples into the office because. And we have an office and then it's a co working space downstairs. I go downstairs and I just share with people. Hey, you want to try this? This is really good. Yeah. So buy it. We're actually selling it or. Yeah. Would you buy this? Yeah. Okay, then I'll bring it in. Like, it's, there's, it's such an unknown that no matter how many questions you ask, it's always going to be a gamble. Or what I'm aiming for is make that gamble infinitely cheaper and easier. And then if, if it pays off, then the, the risk reward was better. And if it doesn't pay off, then we didn't lose as much. Right. So that's what I mean.
Eric Rutherford [11:04 - 11:25]: Makes sense. And so what kinds of, what kinds of products or what kinds of companies do you help sort of expand into Mexico? Is it. Is it like certain types of products? Is it like, you have a broad range? What we generally love to hear, we.
Ramiro Velasco [11:25 - 13:04]: Don'T like generic products. You know, if you sell garlic crushers. Okay, man. Like, there's garlic crushers here as well. We have. We also have private labeling and importing from China and this stuff. Like, listen, you're going to be very upset when this doesn't work because you can't match manufacturers direct pricing on platform. We like brands and we work with brands. Right? Like, you can be a supplement brand. You can be an electronics brand. You can be just a general consumer, like, consumer goods brand. But do you stand out? Do you have a product that is interesting to look at? Is it good quality? Is it, like, this is our metric. We don't want to bring in private label like products, not because there's anything wrong with them, but because the market's a lot more difficult. So we've had cases where, like, hair dryer. I'm like, what? We have hair dryers in Mexico. This is not gonna take off. Then you look at the Amazon volume and it's like one sale a month. And you're like, come on, dude. Like this. What are we doing? All right, listen, let's try it. And then it's selling like, you know, five a day, six a day. Cause they're in country. Cause the price is excess. Oh, my God. I was a fool. I was a fool for not believing. And this is sort of like, you know, is it a brand? Are people looking for it? And then we realized the volume was there. It's just no one wanted to buy it. Shipping it across the border. Okay, cool. Let's make this happen. So there's a lot of. There's a lot of being on calls and being like, hey, man, I'm sorry. This isn't going to work. Like, because I don't want you to email me six months later, angry, like I was an agency for long enough. Yeah, like, you get mad at me, I'm bummed out. I didn't get any work done that day. This was an roi, negative relationship.
Eric Rutherford [13:04 - 13:22]: You know, it's true. But that's good to know that. It's like, okay, you want something branded, you want something unique. You want something that's really not a commodity. It sounds like you want something that's. That has its own purse, like, its own Persona, brand, personality.
Ramiro Velasco [13:22 - 13:42]: There's only so many ways I can market, you know, a garlic crusher, you know, this. But if it's something that I'm like, oh, my God, this is really cool, then I know that the influencer that I send it to is gonna be, okay. This is really cool. And that's gonna come through in the video, and it's gonna be, can we target the right people? And then if we're doing that and driving the right traffic, we're golden.
Eric Rutherford [13:43 - 13:57]: Yeah. Cause it's not like. Yeah, because commodities, you know, if it's. If it's not unique, it becomes a commodity, and then it's a race to zero. And then it's. Yeah, it's like, we can. We can either get it here or we don't need it.
Ramiro Velasco [13:57 - 14:04]: Or it's like, listen, why. Why are we converting? Cause your manufacturer sells it for $0.50 cheaper. And that's all that mattered.
Eric Rutherford [14:07 - 14:14]: At that point. It comes down to cost, and it's like, you're not going to beat them, so you might as well just find a different market.
Ramiro Velasco [14:14 - 14:49]: Yeah. So, like, a lot of the stuff that we. That really works well for us is things that a lot of people look at it, and you see the Facebook comments on the UGC ads going, this is useless. And you go, really? Is it useless? Because it's flying off the shelves? Are you just not seeing the value? You can get that for half the price. Yeah. And, like, 10th of the quality. Like, if that's your reaction, means we're not bottom of the barrel. Means we're not selling the cheapest stuff. It means that there's a market for it that we can actually, like, tap into those comments. Feed me.
Eric Rutherford [14:49 - 14:58]: It does make it difficult. Their beef, what's their angle? What. What's their complaint?
Ramiro Velasco [14:58 - 14:59]: Yeah.
Eric Rutherford [14:59 - 15:06]: And sometimes the complaint is like, okay, yeah, it. Can you. I can find a cheaper one. Okay, that's cool. Go get one.
Ramiro Velasco [15:06 - 15:27]: Go get one. So right now, I'm a huge fan. Absolute. Oh, my God. I'm a huge coffee nerd. Like, this is. I picked the grain, pick the method. I'm. It's lame. Like, it's not cool to be a coffee nerd. It was, like, ten years ago. Now it's just a thing. I'm a huge fan of aeropress as a product. Aeropress. I don't know if you're familiar with them.
Eric Rutherford [15:27 - 15:28]: You know, put.
Ramiro Velasco [15:29 - 15:38]: You put your grounds in, you press it down, and you're through pressure. You're making, like, a half espresso, half Americano. Like, on the go anytime. It's delicious.
Eric Rutherford [15:39 - 15:41]: Wait, what's it called? I'm sorry, I gotta write this one down.
Ramiro Velasco [15:41 - 15:46]: Arrow, as in, like, kind of air aeropre, double s aeropress.
Eric Rutherford [15:47 - 15:47]: Okay.
Ramiro Velasco [15:47 - 15:48]: Absolutely.
Eric Rutherford [15:48 - 15:54]: They're not that. They're not a sponsor, but, you know, if they want to, that's okay. Like, I. There's that.
Ramiro Velasco [15:54 - 16:02]: Like, I'm selling them. I mean, I just sell them, but I don't. I'm not selling them. Like, I listen, and everyone's listening. For Mexico. It's fine. I can do.
Eric Rutherford [16:02 - 16:07]: This is. This is just one. This is one coffee geek to another, trying to figure out how to get the best cup of coffee.
Ramiro Velasco [16:07 - 16:33]: Exactly. So, you know, I look at the comments under their videos, and it's like, a french press does the same thing. It's like, well, you don't know about coffee. There are different methods. They taste different. And I'm a huge coffee press guy. When I got to make more than a single cup, I go. I reach for the coffee press. There is a time and place, and just knowing that people are, like, mostly mad that it's dollar 40 instead of, like, a dollar 13. Coffee, french press, I'm like, all right, this is a good product.
Eric Rutherford [16:33 - 16:41]: But, you know, that's that litmus test. It's just like, okay, does the. You know, if I've got some people who are not happy with it, they're clearly not my market.
Ramiro Velasco [16:41 - 16:42]: Exactly.
Eric Rutherford [16:42 - 16:51]: And I'm going to be happy not to sell to them, and they're going to be happy. Nothing to buy from me. And then I'm going to try and connect with the customers who will appreciate it.
Ramiro Velasco [16:51 - 17:18]: Coffee nerds love it. So it's like, that's it. That's all I needed to show, you know, like, so consistently, we have this idea where, like, we come in, when we first launched a business, we were like, all right, we got to beat everyone to price and went, no, not at all. That's not working. And I was like, all right, we got it. We got to go and do market research. Where do we want to land? What's the perceived value? What's our actual competition being at, you know, like, this kind of stuff? And I'm just seeing much better results.
Eric Rutherford [17:18 - 17:46]: I think it's key, you know, I think, you know, regardless of what you're doing, I think there is this misconception, and I'm guilty of it, this idea of, I gotta be everywhere and at once, and it's not practical when you're starting out it's definitely not practical in the first few years. I mean, the companies that are everywhere, they're, they're so big, right? You, you're, with, the smaller you are, the more strategic you have to be.
Ramiro Velasco [17:46 - 17:49]: Yeah. You can't just throw your wallet at problems.
Eric Rutherford [17:49 - 18:10]: No, no, you've gotta, you gotta pick, pick your battles. And so I like how you distinguish that. So let me ask e commerce in general, how is it different in Mexico than, say, in the US or in Canada or in Europe? How is it, how is it different?
Ramiro Velasco [18:10 - 19:29]: One very easy way to visualize it is probably at like seven, eight years ago in the US is what Mexico looks like right now. And actually I say that seven, like eight years ago is only 2016. Maybe, maybe that's about right where, like, a lot of the older folks are going, do you trust this website? Can, will it get to your house? You know, like that sort of stuff? And then a lot of the younger folks are going, yeah, buying stuff on Amazon consistently. Right? Like, that's just what we're doing. So there's still that divide. And I got here eight years ago, and eight years ago everyone was going, you buy an Amazon? And I was like, I've been buying my toilet paper on Amazon since like 2010. Like, what are you talking about? Like, you know, like, Jeff Bezos knows more about me than myself. Like, so it just, again, more noise coming out the background. I don't think that's picking up either. So that's, that's kind of it where you, you still want a lot of off platform traffic. You know that the volume isn't entirely on, on Amazon and Liberty. And it's like, how do we reach the people? And the other thing is, we're a lot more split. So in the US, you'll have like your own e commerce store, and then your Amazon here in Mexico, Mercado Libre is a huge player, roughly the size of Amazon. You have, you have Amazon, you have Liverpool, a lot of smaller ones. Walmart is really taking some, some space. And then your e commerce sites.
Eric Rutherford [19:29 - 19:29]: Right?
Ramiro Velasco [19:29 - 19:42]: So there, it's a lot more split. So the algorithm play like, oh, well, I'll get rank one, of course. That's amazing. But rank one's gonna get you half the volume. You gotta get rank one twice, thrice, even so.
Eric Rutherford [19:42 - 20:01]: But that's it. But that's a good, that's a good thing to know because, yeah, like you say in the US, it's, you got Amazon and you've got the brand. If, if it's split that way, there's more options. There's a different distribution.
Ramiro Velasco [20:01 - 20:02]: Yeah.
Eric Rutherford [20:02 - 20:15]: Does, are people, I don't want to say brand loyal, but are they sort of supplier loyal in that respect of like Amazon or someplace else or. I'm just looking for the best option.
Ramiro Velasco [20:16 - 20:56]: Yeah, we see that sometimes. Like we'll run a, we'll run a promotion on Amazon and then people will still buy from Mercado Libre and it's like, but Mercado libre is that much more expensive. What are you, you know, like we were at a 20% promotion and people are still buying from Mercado and it's like, why, why not check both? Like I go, I check both, I see which one I want and that's the one. Some people are just like predisposed to one or the other one. How, like Mercury has been around with sort of more name recognition for longer in Latin America and then, but like the counterpoint to that, or I think, like, the other thing to consider is brand loyalty. You've never had a more brand disloyal person than the first time they're going on Amazon and typing cat litter.
Eric Rutherford [20:56 - 20:57]: Right?
Ramiro Velasco [20:57 - 21:33]: Like, I can use like Scoopaway my entire life. And again, I don't sell Scoopaway, by the way. This is, I use scoop away. Well, my cats use Scoopaway. I can use, I can, I can buy Scoopaway for ten years and then I go on Amazon and I type scuba way and it's not available. I then type cat litter and now I am anyone's for the taking as a consumer. Hey, listen, sell to me because my cat's got a pee somewhere. So brand disloyalty, like, or brand loyalty goes down in these, like, beginning stages of the digital, like, digitization of consuming behavior. So that's a great spot to be.
Eric Rutherford [21:33 - 22:02]: Yeah, that, that is because if, if I'm a brand that wants to get into Mexico, suddenly, that means the, the barriers in that respect are much lower just because I, at that point, I just need to get into, into the market. Yeah, it's granted, you know, it's still, I have to, I have to show up, they have to find me. But at the same time, that loyalty barrier is not as high, which has to help.
Ramiro Velasco [22:03 - 22:31]: The other day I was said, how's the supplements? But I had to buy my protein and they were on sale. And I very, with no shame went, hold on, let me see if it's cheaper on Amazon. Like right in his face. I should have had, hey, I got a text, let me know. I was like, let me see if it's cheaper on Amazon, they were like, okay, I looked at it and it's like, it's about two or 3% cheaper. Just give it to me. I don't want to wait for cool, like, but like, yeah, this is normal for a lot of us and then a lot of people aren't doing it yet. So they looked at me like I was an absolute psychopath.
Eric Rutherford [22:31 - 22:38]: But that's, that's fascinating because, like, that, like doing that is like normal for me.
Ramiro Velasco [22:38 - 22:38]: Right.
Eric Rutherford [22:38 - 22:51]: But, but like you say, if I, if that market is not there yet or, you know, that's typically not there yet, that gives you a lot of opportunity.
Ramiro Velasco [22:51 - 23:07]: Exactly. Yeah. I mean, this all, what we're finding is it's worth it to pay top of page because you know what, a lot of consumers aren't looking for the sponsor tag. They just clicked on the first result. We're like, oh, buddy, let's go.
Eric Rutherford [23:07 - 23:08]: It changes the game.
Ramiro Velasco [23:08 - 23:22]: It really does. Because what happened, like, generally you click on sponsored results knowing it's a sponsored result. Then I was like, well, it was the first one that showed up and it seemed like a good price and it seemed like a good product. It didn't go any further. Awesome. Suddenly my main image is the number one priority. Get that click right.
Eric Rutherford [23:23 - 23:26]: That changes, that changes the emphasis and the scope.
Ramiro Velasco [23:26 - 23:27]: So good.
Eric Rutherford [23:27 - 23:27]: Really does.
Ramiro Velasco [23:28 - 23:28]: So good.
Eric Rutherford [23:29 - 23:51]: So let me ask about like collaboration and partnerships. Like, I know that depending on in the US, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Depends on the area. How important is that type of collaboration and partnership in Mexico? And is there something they should do first in order to get that going?
Ramiro Velasco [23:51 - 23:58]: Are we talking collaborations like between us b two b? Or like brands with collaborating with creators?
Eric Rutherford [23:58 - 24:01]: Let's just actually, let's look at each one separate.
Ramiro Velasco [24:01 - 24:01]: Awesome.
Eric Rutherford [24:01 - 24:06]: Let's just, let's look at, if you want, let's hit b two b first and then let's look at creators.
Ramiro Velasco [24:06 - 25:54]: Awesome. I am, I would constantly say nothing comes out of b two b partnerships because the ones that are working out, I just call them my friends. So I have this really distorted reality where I'm like, man, like, none of the b two b, like, partnership calls are really doing anything. And then I realized, oh, that's how I met so and so and so and so and so and so that run a, B, C and D for us. So. No, absolutely. Partnerships make the world go around. I think a lot of, a lot of marketing agencies, like, we can talk about marketing agencies. It's like, hey, this guy will charge us, you know, $1,000 to do this can we figure out how to do it in house? Can, like, Joe do it, and it's like, no, he can't. And you're going to spend six months figuring it out, and then it's going to not work, and you're going to not believe in it. So clearly, a very pent up personal frustration of mine. So partnerships make the world go around. We figured out the right importing partners, the right logistics and warehousing partners, the right, you know, ad management partners, and we just sort of let them work. And it's, you know, those people you really trust. Now, is it really, like, conducive to customer acquisition, the partnerships? Not in my experience. I'm not very good at saying, hey, you do so and so. I do so and so. Let's do like a cross marketing, you know, news blast or whatever. Not very good at it. Something comes up, but it's not incredible, but meeting the right people that you trust to do things every, like, we just outsourced all of our accounting because we, you know, we were trying to figure out the right process for it. And it's like, yeah, automation, and, you know, python scripts, and we worked on it for four or five months. And then we met a guy at the co working that I like working at, co worker that I like working at, and he went, what are you doing? I can handle that. Like, it's so easy to me. I have a whole team that does exactly this. And we went, please go ahead.
Eric Rutherford [25:54 - 26:17]: Indeed. That's, it's like, okay, you got it. You got it. That. I love that. I love that idea with, with the partnership. It just makes everything. Now let's, let's hit in the, the brand influencer type of as well in terms of trying to sell. How's that? Is that necessary? Is it helpful? What's that look like?
Ramiro Velasco [26:17 - 27:39]: So I speak to a lot of agency owners here in Mexico, and the overarching response is, oh, my God, thank God you're doing UGC and influencer programs and stuff, because that's how we grow all of our accounts. You get it in front of the right people, and then they'll go through and shop. There was a study, 2021, I think. I can't, can't find it for the life of me. A friend of mine sent it to me and whatever. Mexico is one of the most influential countries in the world. We like it. Like, if an influencer goes, hey, buy this, we go, sure. Sounds amazing. We believe in that social proof because it hasn't gone through. What, like, again, we're earlier in the process in the US, what happened? You used to be like that and then suddenly influencers were selling you garbage consistently and then you went, you know what, don't trust influencers anymore. And then the de influencing came around these trends from like 23rd 23 that were really interesting. So, but right now, where's power? It's like we gotta get in front of people through social proof of advert of existing influencers. Once that probably starts going away in a couple of years, the expectation is then the volume is going to be coming directly from platforms and then the algorithm sort of based marketing is when it starts taking off. That's sort of like the hypothesis, we'll see if it pans out. There's no real way to monetize off that other than preparing and, but yeah.
Eric Rutherford [27:39 - 27:56]: It'S important though that you see that, right? You see, you're able to compare the different marketplaces and say, okay, I see where the US went, I see where these others went. Here's kind of where we are. This is, this is a potential direction.
Ramiro Velasco [27:57 - 28:17]: Yeah, exactly. This, we launched this business thinking the potential direction is the Mexico going crazy and Latin America going crazy on the e commerce. And that's the, we just keep having these hypotheses that hopefully work out. Sometimes it feels like we're geniuses, sometimes it feels like it's just a parlay bet with like 17 takes.
Eric Rutherford [28:18 - 28:48]: Oh my word. I get that, I get that. It's like, but, but it's one of those things where you're doing the, you're looking at the landscape, you're looking at everything else and then you, you say, this is where I think it's going. And then you, you say, I'm just gonna try it because if I don't, like, there's, you can't, you can't analyze yourself forever. At some point you have to try and then if it doesn't work, then you make an adjustment.
Ramiro Velasco [28:48 - 29:26]: I think that's so difficult. That's something I consistently sort of try to work past, which is making a mistake is scary. It's so scary. And like to the point where like sometimes I write an email and go, did I accidentally call this guy a jerk? You know, like what if I accidentally like wrote something mean to him? Like when you worry about that all day, you eventually go, listen, if you accidentally, if by some miracle you insulted their mother, by, you know, you tripped on the keyboard and you accidentally wrote out like a shakespearean insult, you know what? If that freak accident happens, I'll apologize. Just click send, like, you know what I mean?
Eric Rutherford [29:27 - 29:42]: It is, it's one of those where you just try and, and evaluate as best you can. You make the adjustment, and like you say, as you're, as you're looking ahead and where you've been, you're like, okay, we're, we're just trying to take that next step literally.
Ramiro Velasco [29:42 - 29:55]: Literally. And I think that, I mean, personally, the, I consistently let the perfect get in the way of the good. Recently, someone asked me, oh, yeah, what's one perfect thing you've done? And I went, oh, dude, you're so right. Like, I may as well just mess up more.
Eric Rutherford [29:56 - 30:46]: No, that's, no, I get it. So let me, so in terms of, like, the next year or so, in terms of e commerce, I know with, we're seeing just a lot of technological changes going on. Technology is advancing, but at the end of the day, you're also dealing with supply chain and you're dealing with marketing and buyers. So do you see the e commerce landscape changing much over the next year? And I'll ask that on different layers. That could be the marketing, but that could be even supply chain and other things like that. Wherever I. Those are not the sexy things. Right. You know, but, like, if, if you can't get goods there, it's really hard to sell them. So I just, just open up the floor to that.
Ramiro Velasco [30:46 - 31:40]: I think if by some disastrous event, like whatever the free trade agreement is called now, because they changed the name, if that ever went through, like, fell apart, we'd probably have issues, right. If we ran into another Covid, right, we'd probably have issues, but who wouldn't? And, you know, specific to e commerce, I think we're, I think AI is doing a lot of work that we don't like thinking. Like, I've been, this is something that I think, as marketers, we need to consider is AI good or bad as a selling point? If I tell you, hey, we're AI powered, does that make you think, oh, they're leveraging to the best of the potential, which outdoes humans? Or are we saying, hey, we just throw your stuff in, chat, GPT, and whatever garbage it spits out, we put up, right? Like, what does this mean?
Eric Rutherford [31:40 - 31:42]: So it's a different perception.
Ramiro Velasco [31:43 - 32:40]: It's a different perception, and different clients will see it differently. To me. Are you kidding me? We built out and we're rolling out slowly or copywriting a machine that is outperforming any writer we've ever had because it has so much nuance, so much complexity, so much understanding. I mean, it doesn't understand anything. It's basically autocomplete on steroids. But, you know, it's got such a wealth of sort of like levers to pull that we're finding it's consistently outdoing our humans, but we're not advertising that because if I tell you, AI powered and it's incredible, you go, yeah, GPT is kind of neat, but I don't want my brand being thrown through j so then I have to go on and be like, hey, man, like what we actually mean is, gives us an outline, it gives us this and so and so, and then it runs through this editing and this. And then a human looks at it, make sure that it really works, sends it back, and then it's not, it's, it should be sexy, but it isn't.
Eric Rutherford [32:40 - 33:23]: I agree. And it, it's one of those things that it's for me and this is, this is just me in my perspective. It's like I would rather omit the, the notation, adding it as part of the brand just for simplicity sake. Yeah, but like you say, like, some people will think, okay, they are, they're maximizing their time, they're trying to do as much as they can. They respect cost, they respect time. Hey, I want to do business with them. Other people will think like they're lazy. Like, and like that is, it's crazy to me, just the polar responses, it's crazy.
Ramiro Velasco [33:23 - 33:30]: So here's, I'll tell you something. We're trying to build and hey, no one steal my idea, okay? Don't you dare.
Eric Rutherford [33:31 - 33:33]: Your information safe with us.
Ramiro Velasco [33:34 - 34:32]: This is a close knit group we're building. So we built this beautiful copywriting solution. Like, honestly, it's writing some really good things. It's run through like six, it's run through like twelve GPTs and clods and even a little bit of just, it's going into so many places before a human looks at it where now the next thing we want to do is why don't we use it to a b test? Why is it not making biweekly changes on its own, determining what works best and just keep building on that? I mean, why is no one doing this? And why would it be suddenly when it's like, hey, this is continual improvement? Instead of, hey, we wrote your copyright, a human wrote your copywriting in 2018 and we never touched it again. How is that more appealing than, hey, this algorithmic machine is testing out the algorithm that it's working with that we're all competing on to get the best results. Right? Like, it's all about the framing.
Eric Rutherford [34:33 - 35:08]: It is. It really is. The way you frame it, it makes all the difference. But I think that even very much comes down to. Even at the product level and everything else, much like you say you want something that's brand specific, you know, AI feels very, very foreign, very generic. It can feel very mysterious to a lot of people. Not necessarily, but it's. It has such a weird, like, it's just one of those things that I have been blown away by the different responses.
Ramiro Velasco [35:08 - 35:08]: Yeah.
Eric Rutherford [35:08 - 35:17]: Like, like, there is no universal feeling of either love or hate or welcome or fear. It's.
Ramiro Velasco [35:18 - 35:48]: I talk to people that are like, oh, I don't use GPT. Cause, like, it's like, cheating. It's like, sure. Like, if there's people that will value that to me, if you're like, I refuse to use any AI, I go, oh, well, then in two years, we're not gonna have a lot to talk about, because all intelligence is, is your ability to learn and use tools in different manners. Right? It's. I'm not. Listen, we're not driving in nails by hand. This is why we got. We made a hammer, right?
Eric Rutherford [35:48 - 36:05]: Like, yeah, it's, you know. You know, I think back even. I mean, you could pick your moment in history, but, like, the printing press, you know, I think, honestly, I think spell check and grammar check, so good. Who doesn't use. Who doesn't use spell check? Oh, no, that's cheating. Really? No, I'm gonna use it all day long.
Ramiro Velasco [36:05 - 36:48]: Like, it's excel formulas. What? Oh, I really just. I had to go in and multiply by hand every time. You know, there's this, there's this beautiful thing in music. In music, you can download loops and use loops, like, you know, pre written melodies and so on. It's almost like, you know, I don't use drum loops because that's cheating. So then I started playing my drums myself, but then I realized, well, it's kind of unfair that I'm playing these drums myself, so now I'm learning to make drums. Anyway, I was. I was learning to make the drums, and I realized that I kind of. I bought the sheepskin that I needed to make this, this drum, and that felt really unfair. So, anyway, now I'm herding sheep out in the mountains, trying to make the leather so I can make this nare drum so I can make the drums.
Eric Rutherford [36:48 - 36:53]: It's all. It's so funny because there's always a trade off. Yeah, there is always a trade off with it.
Ramiro Velasco [36:53 - 37:23]: Yeah, I mean, and it's just, I'm a very practical person. I like. I like the current business environment that is. It's Legos. It's fun. It's, you know, you have automation software, like Zapier, like, make, like, all these integration softwares. You're like, can I. Instead of doing this thing once that'll take me 15 minutes, can I spend the next 8 hours figuring out how to never spend those 15 minutes again? And then going in and spending, you know, an entire workday on automating a single email response? That's fun.
Eric Rutherford [37:23 - 37:34]: Well, and, you know, when you look at the long term benefits, you know, it's like, man, the amount of time saved, the amount of. The amount of money saved.
Ramiro Velasco [37:34 - 38:04]: And I want to. I don't want to just make one thing clear, because, I mean, we're. To give it us back. We're talking about, like, the changes in, like, e commerce down the line. I want to make one thing clear. If it's ever. I think. I think I have a very strong sort of distinction here. If it's ever. Well, the results are a little bit worse. But we saved a ton of money. I don't respect that. I don't like. Okay, in that case, and let's just get worse. Writers. Or, like, let's just get worse, you know? Like, what? But if it's, like, the results are better. Cool. That's what I'm looking for. I want the best results. Like, that's it? That's it, yeah.
Eric Rutherford [38:04 - 38:11]: Best. Like, better results or even. Even comparable. Like, even if they're. Yeah, even if it's a push.
Ramiro Velasco [38:11 - 38:12]: Exactly.
Eric Rutherford [38:12 - 38:17]: Okay, so if I can get the same results and I'm not having to do it. Sold.
Ramiro Velasco [38:17 - 40:13]: Yeah, I know. I mean, I have a very toxic business mentality, which is. Who cares about profit? It's a top line. Top line, top line. We got it. You know, we'll figure out. It's so. It's. My partners hate me when I'm. Because I'm so glad I have them to go. You're insane. No, pull it back. I'm like, so what do you mean? Who cares? We can just be leveraged. Like, let's just keep going. And they're like, okay, stop. Because this is what caused the 2008 financial crisis. Like, we cannot, you know, have that mentality. But, yeah, so it's never about cost. It's about, like, are we getting. I hate. But I'll go on record saying this. I don't like Elon Musk. I'm okay with saying that. Elon Musk famously said something that I really like, which is machines don't have to be perfect. They just have to be better than humans. And it's like, that's wonderful. Like, yeah, you're right. Sometimes the machine will make a mistake. Sometimes the machine will have the wrong keyword. Sometimes. But statistically, are we. Are we getting better results? Yeah, that's, I think, where e commerce is headed. Constant. Constant a, b, testing constant. Like, we have every single person that's probably under the age of, I'll say, 40. Everyone that's under the age of 40 has become children with skittles, where our attention spans are getting consistently shorter and shorter. Right? And we're like, now a ten second TikTok is like, all right, you're on the edge of like, listen, if it was 12 seconds, I wouldn't have completed your video, like, onto the next. We're living at six thoughts a minute. Like, it's so fast that there's no way that these algorithms don't keep evolving to get you to buy more. If you've ever seen Chinese like tv selling, it is colorful. It looks so ugly and so tacky, and guess what? It is colorful, and it's hitting your dopamine, and it's making you buy like crazy. And I think that's where we're going, where the algorithm's gonna know us better than we do, and we're just gonna turn on tv and go, yeah, I want to buy that. Open your phone. Hey, sure, I want to buy that. That's where I think we're going.
Eric Rutherford [40:13 - 40:20]: Oh. So let me ask, just as we're wrapping up here, any takeaway you would like to leave the audience with?
Ramiro Velasco [40:20 - 41:33]: Yeah, we didn't really touch on it, but Mexico is really good selling, like I said. Listen, listen. I said it at the top. I don't like promoting my product, but as a consumer, I live in Mexico, and I'm just, as you can see from the bougainvillea colored wall in the background, there's a very mexican color. We are a country that, like, has money in our pockets and a lot of products that we can't buy or that we have to wait for. Like, there's a lot, you know, scrub daddy. I don't work. Again, not affiliated in any way with scrub daddy. Scrub daddy. I used to look at it and go, like, five. $6 a sponge. Are you joking? Why would I ever spend $6 on a sponge? Fly off the shelves. Fly off the shelves. Walmart can't keep it stocked what? I have a scrub daddy now. Why do I have a scrub daddy now? Because my partner, she was there and she was like, hey, this seemed like a really good product. And I was like, we spent 130 pesos on a sponge. Okay? I mean, the other ones are like 20. You know that, right? And it works. So, like, we like these products. It's just tough to get them. So we want to, you know, we came in and we're like, hey, let's bring them in. And if you have a product that's that, it's interesting, that's fun. Like, it's marketable. Try it out in Mexico. See if you can find your audience.
Eric Rutherford [41:33 - 42:05]: I love that. That's. That's huge. So if you're listening, like, and that's what you're selling, that's what your business does. If you haven't thought about Mexico, I would encourage I you to do that, because it is. I know, like, the market share in the US, depending on where you're at, it feels like nothing moves. There is, like, no way to do anything. So this is an opportunity to really, really expand. So, Romero, if people want to know more about you or about your company, where do you want them to go?
Ramiro Velasco [42:05 - 42:49]: So if you want to chat with me directly, you can go on govance.com. that's goavance. And there's a contact form with a K with, like, an appointment, calendly setter that goes directly to me. I have the hubris to have my calendly open, which is just not great. You can always reach me through LinkedIn. Romero, Velasco. On LinkedIn, I post a lot. I'm mostly. I mostly chat with people there. I'm very clearly sort of anti corporate. But you have to be on LinkedIn. Yeah, or email info at govance, I have the generic one. So everyone else, everyone else on my team and all my partners, they have their own emails and they all look very nice. And I'm info, so we want to chat with info right here.
Eric Rutherford [42:49 - 42:54]: But that gives you the opportunity to outsource that email at some point in time.
Ramiro Velasco [42:54 - 43:01]: Oh, the dream, the absolute dream is one day. Reach inbox zero and be like, now it's your turn.
Eric Rutherford [43:02 - 43:17]: Oh, I love it. So if you're listening, all those links will be in the show notes. Definitely reach out to Romero. Check out go of Anz. They're doing some wonderful stuff. Romero. This has been a ball. I've laughed a lot. I've learned a ton. Thanks for joining me today.
Ramiro Velasco [43:17 - 43:32]: No, thank you. You kind of let me. You kind of let my ADHD take over and just go a little bit crazy. And I love the vibe where, like, anyone that's just listening, Eric's, like, muted. And I can still see him laughing, and I'm like, all right, all right, it's working. It's landing. It's landing.