Commerce Minded – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Rachel Gertz, the visionary co-founder and director of growth and delivery at Louder Than Ten, graces today’s episode with revelations that will forever alter your perception of project management. We examine the psychological depths and cultural implications of project management, discussing how this discipline is not just about timelines and budgets, but about understanding the complex human dynamics that drive success in business. Rachel's insights on attachment theory in professional relationships and the emotional landscapes navigated by project managers illuminate the often-overlooked aspects of team interaction and company culture.

Later in our conversation, Rachel touches on ‘humanizing’ project management techniques, touching upon the integration of psychology in change management and the burgeoning concept of 'Brave New Work.' Rachel shares Louder Than Ten's journey toward becoming a worker-owned cooperative, a move that's redefining community engagement and power dynamics. Her practical advice and heartening anecdotes offer invaluable wisdom for anyone aiming to champion project management with confidence and empathy. 

In this episode:

• Insights about the human element in project management and its relationship to attachment theory and psychological safety
• Evolution of digital project management, challenges in integration, sales alignment, and the expanded role of project managers
• The power of a mindset shift in project management, wielding power through communication and risk identification
• The need for project management literacy throughout a business to promote communication, a better understanding of risk, and fostering company growth
• Understanding desire dynamics (high and low desire roles) in project management and how they can create conflict and affect relationships with potential for trauma
• Workplace culture, organizational trauma, personal traumas, and employee well-being
• What's next for Rachel and Louder Than Ten as they transition to being a worker-owned cooperative
• “Would you rather” questions posed by Stephen to Rachel about project management

The Commerce Minded podcast is powered by Foster Commerce. Hosted by Foster’s Owner and CEO Stephen Callender and Director of Marketing & Business Development Elle McSharry, the show features interviews with leaders in the trenches of digital commerce who are figuring things out, experiencing triumphs, overcoming challenges, and experiencing success.

Mentions in the show include: a quote from Edwin Friedman, Conversations for Action by Fernando Flores, and Brave New Work

Resources:

Louder Than Ten

Rachel Gertz LinkedIn

Stephen Callender on LinkedIn

Elle McSharry LinkedIn

Foster Commerce

Today we speak with Maddie Banta, the website manager at MW Company. We’ll take a deep dive into her work for MW Company migrating several online retail websites to Craft Commerce. Maddie’s rich background spanning agency work, graphic design, development, and ecommerce, contributes to her expertise. Throughout the episode, Maddie underscores the importance of a personal touch in digital commerce and discusses the challenges and triumphs of re-platforming, the significance of a developer-friendly CMS for managing multiple brands, and the strategic approach to enhancing user experience.

Maddie reveals how Craft Commerce has revolutionized the company's B2B and D2C platforms, allowing them to pair content and commerce and streamline operations. From the intricacies of online retail and re-platforming challenges to the upcoming multi-site B2B dealer portal with Craft Commerce 5, Maddie shares her comprehensive journey from graphic design to ecommerce expertise. Tune in to hear helpful insights into the strategic innovations that keep the customer experience at the forefront.

In this episode:

• Paying it forward at Starbucks can be pricey
• Icebreaker game- “Texas or Virginia”
• MW Company's ecommerce evolution
• Maddie's journey to ecommerce expertise
• Learning to troubleshoot leads Maddie to discover Craft CMS
• Migrating websites
• Craft Commerce blends B2B and D2C with a personal touch
• Challenges and successes of re-platforming 
• Anticipating Craft Commerce 5's impact on B2B dealer portal
• Decision-making process behind choosing Craft CMS
• Real-time marketing adjustments streamline high-pressure sales events
• A development team for custom module integration
• Human-centric ecommerce experience with Craft Commerce

The Commerce Minded podcast is powered by Foster Commerce. Hosted by Foster’s Owner and CEO Stephen Callender and Director of Marketing & Business Development Elle McSharry, the show features interviews with leaders in the trenches of digital commerce who are figuring things out, experiencing triumphs, overcoming challenges, and experiencing success.

Resources:

Maddie Banta LinkedIn

MW Company

Stephen Callender on LinkedIn

Elle McSharry LinkedIn

Foster Commerce

Dave Ritter has always been interested in the intersection between art and tech, and with over 10 years of ecommerce experience and a background in marketing and design, he has valuable insight to offer on the topic of choosing the right content management system for the job.

Working closely with clients throughout the iterative process of developing a successful ecommerce site and strategy, Dave knows the importance of design and brand when it comes to selling online.

Tune in to learn how Craft Commerce works for clients with an established business logic, how the intuitive backend makes it a breeze for clients to work with, and listen as Dave shares some advice for developers who may be working with Commerce for the first time.

Key takeaways:

• Craft gives you the ability to relate content with commerce
• Craft Commerce is great for clients who want software and technology to follow their business logic
• Most clients aren’t designers, but design really matters
• Clients are quick to pick up and learn the backend with Craft’s intuitive UI
• Ecommerce essentials and best practices--Dave offers some advice

Resources:

• RitterKnight.com

Today we take a sneak peek behind Snipcart developer Matt Stein’s curtain. Matt is a developer with a design background, who has recently developed the Snipcart plugin for Craft CMS. Matt talks about his motivation to create Snipcart when there were already two great ecommerce plugin options on the market currently - Commerce Pro and Commerce Lite, and gives us insight into where Snipcart sits between the two, and who should be using it.

Listen as I chat to Matt not just about his professional life as a developer, but how he achieves his work/life balance. We talk about:

Key takeaways:

• Why he chose to settle in Seattle rather than Boston after university.
• How Snipcart differs to Commerce Pro and Commerce Lite.
• Why, even though he’d been developing Snipcart since 2014, he only made it public recently.
• How he determined the cost of the plugin ($179).
• Why he’s a perpetual learner who just loves learning new things (and why his home sewn, manly reading pillow is a solid invention).
• What makes Columbus, Ohio so great.

URLs/resources/social media links:

Twitter: @mattrambles
Snipcart plugin: https://workingconcept.com/plugins/snipcart
Snipcart: https://snipcart.com
The Beer Junction: https://twitter.com/thebeerjunction

Ryan Masuga, the founder and Principal of Masuga Design, has more than a decade of experience growing and running his business. He has learned (sometimes the hard way) what it takes to be profitable.
Ryan takes his cues on business strategy from the school of Profit First. He advocates for sticking to your financial plan, and not reacting to the waves of disruption on a month-to-month basis.

Tune in for an insightful conversation about running your business finances, grading your clients, the three questions you should always ask when making decisions, and why hiring a project manager is a real game changer.

Key takeaways:

• Cut unnecessary expenses and having a real-time view of what you have in each account.
• Grade your clients and deciding who you jump for and who maybe aren’t really a fit.
• Project for profit sharing and charitable donations.
• Identify what only you can do and delegate other tasks to your team.

URLs/resources/social media links:

• Masuga
• Twitter @gomasuga @masuga
• LinkedIn
• Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine by Mike Michalowicz
• The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field by Mike Michalowicz
• Louder Than Ten apprenticeship
• Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits by Greg Crabtree

Fred Carlsen has only been developing plugins since 2015, but in this time he has gone on to become one of the most prolific Craft CMS plugin developers in the business. Since the release of Craft 3, he’s come out with more than 25 plugins, with more on the way, averaging a new plugin every two weeks.

Fred joined Stephen for an open and honest discussion about creativity, time management, and setting priorities. From his desire to help others, how he conquered his fears, and how he is learning to practice self-preservation.

Tune in to hear from one of the true experts in plugin development, and hear about some of the exciting new plugins he is planning to push this year.

Key takeaways:

• Balancing time and energy as a creator
• Conquering imposter syndrome, and putting yourself out there
• Pricing your plugins in a way that values your efforts
• Refactoring a plugin to support multiple providers

URLs/resources/social media links:

• StraightUp Craft
• Superbig
• @sjelfull

Concierge Commerce is a new service — built on Craft Commerce Pro’s subscription feature — that promises to be a game changer for ecommerce retailers and vendors looking to connect by providing a one-stop platform to shop services and set up sales meetings. Founders Tae FitzSimons and Doug Hollinger have spent years working in the commerce world and discovered a common problem that required a solution: ecommerce retailers don’t know how or where to shop for the tech services they need when they need them. Likewise vendors are often not connecting with the right person at an organization, or even their ideal customer.

A big pain point for many retailers is there is no easy list or search service to find the vendors they need. With Concierge Commerce serving as the “counselor,” they are helping vendors talk about their products and services more articulately, and helping retailers learn to ask the right questions. But, like counselors, they are only facilitating the relationship - not giving advice or opinions.

Unlike most sites that create matrices with weighted arguments for one product or another, the Vendors on Concierge Commerce speak for themselves. Ultimately, Tae and Doug are building a roadmap toward a full service vendor selection platform where users can can search vendors and schedule meetings live on the site.

Tune in to learn how Concierge Commerce is about to become the ultimate matchmaker for vendors and ecommerce sites.

Key takeaways:

• Playing matchmaker between technology vendors and ecommerce retailers
• The questions you should be asking before you even think about looking for a new product or vendor
• Finding the solutions you need for your business, and not relying on reviews or popularity to make business decisions for your requirements
• Tapping into what your company does best so you can better articulate your products and services
• What you should be considering if your company is thinking about going headless

Resources:

• Concierge Commerce
• Shoptalk

Having that great relationship between developer and business is something that is often difficult to achieve, but today’s guests are an excellent example of what that looks like.

Eric Marthinsen of Built and Tracey Corbitt of Rochester Electronics discuss the unique challenges of building an ecommerce site selling over 350,000 SKUs and the company’s fascinating business model. They also each give some insightful advice at the end, so be sure to stick around for that.

Tune in to learn why Craft Commerce was the right choice for Rochester’s site build, what it means to look at sales and digital marketing from a technical perspective, and what to watch out for when rebuilding, re-platforming, or building a fresh site.

Key takeaways

• Craft Commerce saved the day for Rochester, giving them a better build but also making it affordable for them to have a custom site that fit their business needs
• They faced a unique challenge, with likely the highest number of SKUs in their system of any Craft site
• Rochester Electronics has a fascinating business model
• They take a technical approach to sales and digital marketing operations
• Eric and Tracey each give some valuable advice

Resources:

• Bui.lt
• AgileCommerce.com
• Rochester Electronics

Pixel & Tonic’s greatly anticipated release of Craft Commerce 2 — now with Pro and Lite editions — brings several improvements and new features that make it an even more powerful tool for building a customized ecommerce site.

Luke Holder is on the show to discuss some of these new features and give a few sneak peeks at what’s to come in future versions of Craft and Commerce. And if any developers are listening, Pixel & Tonic is hiring a new senior Commerce developer--accepting applications now.

Listen to learn about the differences between Commerce Pro and Lite as well as some of the use cases and additional features now available in both versions.

Key takeaways

• Craft CMS has three big announcements: Craft 3.1, Commerce 2, and the new Craft plugin store
• Commerce 2 has been released with a Pro and Lite version
• What’s on the horizon? More plugins and features in the works
• Craft is looking to hire another Commerce developer
• DotAll is in Montreal this year in September

Resources:

• CraftCMS.com
• PixelandTonic.com

How does brand identity inform your ecommerce approach and growth strategy?

For Jim Coudal of Field Notes, it’s about putting the brand first and then figuring out how to “make the ecommerce piece of it work to show the brand in its best light.” Noah Bernsohn of One Design Company joins the conversation as well to help shed some light on why Craft Commerce was the best fit for the Field Notes site.

Listen to learn how Jim’s focus and consistency around knowing the Field Notes brand identity creates a clear sense of who they are and what they’re willing to do (and not do), and how they reconcile those boundaries and limits with growth and sales.

Key takeaways

• The original audience for Field Notes were other design nerds
• Field Notes wanted something specific and unique for their site, so they chose Craft Commerce
• Field Notes puts brand first
• One Design Company also built the Craft site

Resources:

• FieldNotesBrand.com
• One Design Company