How This Guy Makes His Entire Year's Revenue in Black Friday WEEK

Join me as I chat with Jonathan Courtney, Co-Founder and CEO of AJ&Smart, as we dive deep into Black Friday Campaign strategy. Jonathan shares his strategies and frameworks for leveraging Black Friday regardless of what type of business you run. Episode Timestamps 00:00 - Intro 01:15 - The Importance of Black Friday for Businesses 04:21 - Types of Black Friday Sales 05:01 - Case Study: Endel's Renewal Strategy 08:49 - Comparing Strategies: MagicMind and AG1 12:48 - Apple's Unique Approach to Black Friday 14:25 - Creative E-commerce Strategies 20:12 - Bundling Products for Black Friday 22:51 - Startup Idea 1: Black Friday Agency 27:55 - Gamifying Promo Codes 29:59 - Our Black Friday Buys 31:41 - Live Streaming as a Sales Strategy 1) The Store Credit Hack Instead of basic "20% off" - tell customers they have $21.63 in store credit expiring soon Why it works: • Feels like "their money" • Specific numbers boost authenticity • Creates urgency 2) The Premium Play How luxury brands do Black Friday: • No discounts • Give gift cards with purchase • Example: Apple gives $200 credit Keeps brand prestige while driving sales 3) The Bundle Builder Four Sigmatic's genius approach: • Interactive bundle builder • Unlocks bigger discounts at $59/$99 • Shows real-time savings • Makes shopping fun Steal this for your store 4) The Bonus Stack MagicMind's approach: • Start with core discount • Add digital product access • Include physical gifts • Stack more bonuses as week progresses Psychology: Value over Discount 5) The Subscription Push SaaS playbook: • Offer renewal discounts • Add exclusive bonuses • Example: Endel does 50% off + premium gifts • Works for any subscription business 6) The QVC Strategy Modern twist: • Run 12-hour livestream sales • Show limited quantities • Create FOMO • Add exclusive bundles • Perfect for influencer brands 7) The Campaign Timeline Smart businesses: • Plan 6 months ahead • Start ads 3 days before • Build waiting lists • Layer in bonuses • Peak on Friday 8) The Profit Reality Truth bomb: • Could make 1-2 months revenue in 1 week • Some brands make yearly revenue • Even "bad" years saved by Black Friday • Ignoring it = leaving millions on table Remember: Black Friday isn't just a discount day. It's a strategic revenue event that can make your entire year. Don't flub it Want more free ideas? I collect the best ideas from the pod and give them to you for free in a database. Most of them cost $0 to start (my fav) Get access: https://www.gregisenberg.com/30startupideas LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ BoringAds — ads agency that will build you profitable ad campaigns http://boringads.com/ BoringMarketing — SEO agency and tools to get your organic customers http://boringmarketing.com/ Startup Empire - a membership for builders who want to build cash-flowing businesses https://www.startupempire.co FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/ FIND JONATHAN ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jicecream LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-courtney-4510644b/ AJ&Smart: https://ajsmart.com/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Greg Isenberg?

  Jay Ice Cream, what is this episode about?

• 0:06Speaker 01

  So it is, as of recording this, it is Black Friday week. It is one of the biggest weeks of the year in terms of sales for e-commerce companies, for product companies, for info product companies. We are running multiple Black Friday sales for companies this week. And I thought, what I've been surprised about is that a lot of companies who sell things, not just services, but like a lot of people who sell products, don't take part in Black Friday. And if they do, they don't really understand the different types of deals and different types of sales they can do. And so I thought it would be cool to look at some really cool examples of sales that are running right now as this week goes on,

• 0:49Speaker 01

  and look at the different ways you can run Black Friday sales, but also any type of sale.

• 1:16Speaker 01

  And it's not just, "Oh, I'm gonna do a discount." That's like really low-level running a sale campaign thing. Just to give you a feeling, like a company that's making, let's say, 500K a month, or 200K a month, could make $1 to $2 million in just this week. And a company that's making like 10 million per month, or 20 million per month, could make like all of their yearly revenue combined in just this one week as well. And so it's not, and a lot of people don't understand that, you know, sometimes I talk to entrepreneurs and they're like, "Ah, I don't want to take part in that. I don't want to take part in, like, it's too, you know, we're a prestigious brand and like, we want to stay away from that kind of stuff."

• 2:01Speaker 01

  And I'm like, "Let me show you all the prestigious brands that are more prestigious than you, running sales like this, and you just don't understand how to actually do it in a way that's maybe, you know, on-brand." So I think a lot of people are... Not thinking about Black Friday as a sales opportunity and people who do think of it as a sales opportunity often completely flub it because they don't know the different types of sales that they can do. We run a Black Friday sale every year. We run Black Friday sales for our customers and they make millions of dollars. And I think we can show you, I'd like to show you like some of my favorite examples that are out there right now and teach people a few things they can learn for their own things that they're selling.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  That's my idea for today, anyway.

• 2:48Greg Isenberg?

  So a few things. Number one, I like the way you say prestigious.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  Prestige. What do I say prestigious?

• 2:57Greg Isenberg?

  You say prestigious.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  Do I say prestigious or do I say prestigious?

• 3:01Greg Isenberg?

  No, you say prestigious. Let the record show that you say prestigious. That's number one. Number two, you said the word flub.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  Flub.

• 3:10Greg Isenberg?

  Which I thought was an incredible word.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  Flubby.

• 3:14Greg Isenberg?

  Write, write flub in the comments if you agree with me.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  Hashtag.

• 3:17Greg Isenberg?

  And number three, I think, you know the saying, if you make it in New York, you can make it anywhere?

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:27Greg Isenberg?

  Well, I think if you can do a great Black Friday sale, you could sell anything on the internet. So I'm excited to dive in with you.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  I have an alternative way of saying that. If you can do a great Black Friday sale, you can literally fuck up everything for the rest of the year and still have a great year.

• 3:46Greg Isenberg?

  There we go.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  You could have your worst year ever, full of the worst strategic business decisions and still nail Black Friday and still make it all back. Like, I'll tell you, we've had some, you know, 2023, we didn't have a great year. Like, we, I made some strategic decisions at AJ and Smart that I don't think were very clever. And Black Friday was, Black Friday and kind of like summer sale, those made up for some of the sillier decisions or larger expenses. So yeah, that would be my really messy alternative quote for that.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  So should we have a look at a couple of these Black Friday sales and kind of look at what they're doing? Like, I haven't broken it down into different types yet, but I think there's like, there's companies that do discounts, there's companies that do free bonuses and no discount, there's companies that do bundles with discounts and free bonuses, and there's companies who do sort of like, if you've got like a subscription software service, there's really interesting things people do to get you to renew as well. So I think there's a mixture of everything in here, from physical products to SaaS products to just like services and stuff like that. So I think I've got a big, I've got a big overview of some nice things. Well, I show you the first one because I can literally just open

• 5:04Speaker 01

  it on my phone right now. So, do you know the product Endel?

• 5:10Greg Isenberg?

  Uh, is it a sleeping type thing?

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, so they basically do, I'm sorry that this is not really focusing. So Endel basically does different types of noise and soundscapes which help with stress and sleeping, and they have like ADHD focus, whatever. And it's, I personally think it's a really nice product. And my renewal is coming up, but I chose an annual non-automatic renewal last year. And so what's coming up on my screen this year, and I'll tell you what they did last year as well to get me in, they are showing me this 50% off if I renew. And when I tap into it, and obviously I got a notification about that, and if I tap into

• 5:57Speaker 01

  it, I'm essentially given a mini landing page within the Endel app, which is showing me all of the benefits that I might have forgotten about. And this sale, this like, this is kind of something that evolves throughout the Black Friday week, where they might add in a bonus towards the end of the week. Last week, last year, they added in a really nicely designed Endel bag. Whoever designed that Endel bag, I know you guys are based in Berlin, that bag convinced me. But yeah, so this is something where if you have a software product, or if you have a service where there's an annual renewal, Doing something around Black Friday, even if that's not exactly the time where people are renewing.

• 6:41Speaker 01

  So for example, with the PlayStation or Sony this week are doing their Black Friday sale. They started it last Friday and they have this PSN service, which is you pay for that service to play multiplayer on PlayStation. And even if you're already a subscriber to PSN, which I am, they'll say, hey, if you want to like extend for another year, if you want to add more on, you can do it at a discount during this week. And so that's something which is like a, you're already locked into the system. You're already part of the subscription. But now during Black Friday week, when people are expecting things to be happening and discounts to be happening, they're offering you a way to extend. Whoop is doing the same thing. You'll probably see these boys here,

• 7:25Speaker 01

  along with doing a lot of like little bonuses with their bands and everything. But yeah, SaaS products are doing like renewal pushes around this time of the year. And if you're not a member, they're obviously doing their subscription pushes at this time of the year. So that's one example that I really like. If you're running some sort of digital product, some sort of SaaS thing, this is the time of year where you can push people on some sort of nice juicy renewal plan. You should check out Endel. It's nice.

• 7:56Greg Isenberg?

  Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition. So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com. And that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30 day sprint

• 8:41Greg Isenberg?

  with 100% money back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com. Is there anything you would do differently if you were running marketing at Endel?

• 8:55Speaker 01

  So we, I think that they're doing a great job. First of all, I think they, they really put it front and center. I think I would probably take the approach that Magic Mind and AG1 are taking this week, which is I would include the free gifts upfront. So free gift, the free gift strategy, I think I spoke about it the last time I was on. But if we maybe open up, do you mind if I just share my screen and open up Magic Mind? Just in case this is gone?

• 9:30Greg Isenberg?

  I don't mind at all. You know what, you know what that, that's the equivalent of is when you get like, I don't know, maybe you get some oysters or you get a fish and someone says, do you mind if I lemon it? You know, like put some lemon on it? It's like, obviously, we don't mind if you put lemon on it. Like, no one is going to, no one is gonna get mad at you for sharing your screen right now. No one's gonna get mad at you for putting lemon on the oysters.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  I just don't want you to get mad at me, okay? So I think what Magic Mind has done, in my opinion, is like a masterclass in a Black Friday sale. We're emulating a lot of this for the Black Friday sales we're running. First of all, you obviously get your discount upfront. Second of all, you get welcome gifts. And welcome gifts are things that you're only going to get as part of this sale. And so the welcome gifts are, you get 90 days access to this open app. I don't know if you've ever used this open app. It's really nice. You know, it's usually $60. Now it's free. You get the Beyond Coffee book, which teaches you how to become more productive,

• 10:35Speaker 01

  but without, without coffee. And you also get free shipping as part of a welcome gift. I think they have the same gifts for both. So this is something where not only are they saying, okay, if you just come back to us and subscribe, we'll give you 50% off, Magic Mind, plus free gifts. That's the thing that actually gets you. It like sweetens the deal. AG1 are doing the exact same thing. I don't know if you've seen how many gifts. They're adding to their thing, but it's been building up for the entire Black Friday month. I'll show you. Let's see if they're presenting this publicly. Yeah, they're calling it their welcome pack. Oh, there, oh, there's some of the, some of this stuff's only happening in email.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  So it depends how far, how long you've been in their funnel, I guess. But they're currently doing this. I'm just gonna actually switch it to English. Cause it's on German. Now we're gonna have to do, we're gonna have to do German. I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. Do you mind if we do this in German?

• 11:41Greg Isenberg?

  That's where I draw the line.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  So you can see that AG1 right now for Black Friday is doing two travel packs. Vitamin D, the container and the shaker, all for the price of what you usually just get the, the bag and the initial shaker for. If you look at their Black Friday email campaign, they've also added in a hat. So sometimes what you can do, and that's what we also do, is you start with a set of free gifts. And as the campaign goes on, you add more free gifts, which obviously you give to the people who joined early. But it convinces people towards the end of the sale to jump in. And they, sometimes you can call these Mifkey's, most incredible free gifts ever. Sometimes you can call these one, like one-time welcome gifts.

• 12:30Speaker 01

  But it's like a way to, and a lot of people do merch, like a one-time merch, which you can only get during this period of time. I just think it's a really, people don't realize how powerful it is to just give someone something to sweeten the deal. And discounts are often not enough. There's another way. Do you wanna see like the more prestige way to do it? What is it prestigious, prestigious? So this is, so what people will say to me is like, yeah, but like, like, you know, premium brands, like Apple doesn't do that and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, all right, all right, motherfucker. Let's take a look at what Apple's doing.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  Yes, they do something very different, but they still really push Black Friday and Cyber Monday. So let me show you how Apple make this happen.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  Apple, and this is something that's also effective.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  And more, you know, highbrow. This is you buy a product from Apple during this period of time, a non-discounted product, and you get a $200 gift voucher that you can spend on something else from Apple. So it's not that you're getting a discount. It's not that you're getting a free gift. It's that they're giving you a $200 voucher during this period of time to buy something else from them. And I think that's like a really great way to not cheapen these high-quality products and like these kind of, you know, high-end products while still technically giving you a discount. They're just not saying it upfront.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  They're giving you a $200 gift card. So they're theoretically giving you a discount because you have to spend it with them, but they're not saying this is a discount. Can I show you another really, can I show you a cool and really creative one that an e-commerce shop has done?

• 14:26Greg Isenberg?

  Wait, can I show you, can I show you something?

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm like.

• 14:31Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah. We are the biggest nerds on the internet, I think.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  Dude, we've, the entire AJ and Smart team, for the last month, we've just been collecting these and obsessing about them. Show me yours.

• 14:44Greg Isenberg?

  I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

• 14:49Speaker 01

  All right, well, I'll go for it. No, yeah, go on.

• 14:52Greg Isenberg?

  Okay, here we go. So what I like about this is Black Friday sale, you have $17.63 in store credit. So instead of doing like buy something and you get a gift card, I think that if people have credit that is, look, hello, hello, Max, you've got store credit, which is about to expire for good on Sunday. They put your account email and they say, use your code to apply the credit at checkout gainsinbulk.com.

• 15:27Greg Isenberg?

  And then it's just like, it feels like, no, I don't want to lose my credit. That's my credit.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  That's really cool. I'm just literally, I just screenshot that. I screenshotted it and added to our Team Black Friday thing. That's really cool. I love that one. So store credit, so they're basically telling you.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  You've got this.

• 15:47Greg Isenberg?

  Instead of a discount, instead of a discount, right? Everyone thinks of discounts. I'll give you 10% off, 20% off, 30% off. If the average, you know, order size is a hundred dollars and you were going to give $20 off, right? Instead of saying you have 20% off, because everyone is saying you have 20% off, the whole internet is saying you have 20% off. Say you have, actually, don't say you have $20 in credit. Say you have $21.63 in credit.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  I love that. That's really cool. That's really nice. Um, I just need to, I want to tell my team this for the next email, so just give me one sec. Can you bring that up on screen again? So, because my screenshot didn't actually work. Who's this from?

• 16:40Greg Isenberg?

  It's from, Jordan on my team sent it to me. So it's from Gains in Bulk? Like, what is that?

• 16:50Speaker 01

  I wonder what that's about.

• 16:55Greg Isenberg?

  Oh, no.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  This is going into.

• 16:57Greg Isenberg?

  Oh, no.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that is so cool.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 17:04Greg Isenberg?

  It's like a protein company, right? Yeah, like creatine, workout candy. Good name. Athletic digestive formula. Yeah.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Okay, I'll show you one from my email screenshot hole. Uh, so this is another concept, which is, let me see, can you see my Basecamp thing?

• 17:29Greg Isenberg?

  I see, I see Growth Day.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, look at this.

• 17:32Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  So this, instead of doing a discount, instead of doing Mifkey's, instead of doing anything else, it's, okay, all those things that weren't in one package before are now in one box at like a slightly better price than buying all of them individually. So, and, and creating a branded element, a new branded product that's now going on sale during this period of time. I think this is a really cool, it's a really cool way of not just doing something. Discountee are not just doing something like, you know, free gift. It's like, I'm just taking all of this stuff. You see companies like Aesop doing this as well. The hand soap company or like the beauty company, I don't know.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  They've bundled like different scents into a box and they're like special things for Christmas, which make you want to buy them for friends. I really like that as a simple repackaging of all the things you already have as a bundle to sell for Black Friday. I like that one.

• 18:38Greg Isenberg?

  I like that too. I think, you know, you showed it with, um, who was it? Magic Mind. I thought what was really cool about their kind of bundle is they were giving a free digital product that I don't think, I don't think they started that company.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  I don't think so either.

• 19:00Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah. So I think that, yeah. So if you're looking for something to bundle, go reach out to companies that you like. And they're happy because they're getting distribution. Like a digital product is free to distribute. And you're happy because you're adding value.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  And I think like, it's such a missed opportunity when I see companies, like companies with million dollar Facebook meta budgets and they're just doing straight up discounts. Or, I mean, the worst case scenario is they're just ignoring Black Friday because they don't, like, if you talk to someone and they're running an e-commerce site or they're selling things online and you ask them in like September, are you guys getting ready for November? And they're like, what do you mean November? I'm like, all right, goodbye. Either you're making too much money or just shit's not working at all. Because you need to know, like, from like June, we already knew the 29th of November was coming up. We're already thinking about it.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  And if you're spending like a million dollars already per month and you're just sending people to a straight up discount, I think that's crazy. Especially when this could be your biggest week of the year. Can I show you a really cool one, like a really creative one? I cannot tell you whether this works or not because I don't know anything about it. I just think this one's cool. So zero data on this, but vibes, positive vibes. I need to reach out to the team and ask them. Why they decide to do this? Okay, I've always been a fan. By the way, it's also good for your brand. Sip more, save more.

• 20:34Greg Isenberg?

  Sip more, baby.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they're doing something kind of interesting. So you can either shop their curated kits, which are going to be bundles, or you can build your bundle. And I've been playing around with this. So here's like a whole like little web app for Black Friday. And the more you add to the bundle, the more you save. So there's this checkpoint at $99. After which point, so there's a checkpoint at $59 for free shipping. And there's a checkpoint at $99, which gets you 40% off. This is fucking genius, in my opinion. And this is something I'm going to steal for any e-commerce clients we work with in future. So I'm just going to like add things. They add up here.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  What's really cool is you can see the bundle building up. And now I have free shipping. I wish there was a check mark when you actually got that point, but whatever. We're all good. And we're going to turn this up. And now I have 40% off everything. And you can see your savings here. I think that's a little bit hard to see, but that's all good. And then you proceed to checkout and you can see all your savings. I think this is a super, super cool one.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  I love it. It's really nice. And I'm sure you can also add other discount codes. I'm sure there's other things you can also add on there. And I'm assuming that as this campaign goes on, there'll just be more and more stuff. But this is actually a pretty sophisticated Black Friday sale, creating your Black Friday box. I think it's like it wins the SIP award for best or most creative Black Friday sale, in my opinion. And the SIP award, we know, is a very big deal.

• 22:16Greg Isenberg?

  It's huge. So I'm just wondering, did they build that themselves? Because that startup idea, go and just build this and make a Shopify app and...

• 22:29Speaker 01

  It's genius. I would assume, I would assume that the Four Sigmatic guys probably did build it themselves.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  But I don't know. I think they probably did. But I mean, anyone being out there, being able to build something like that for their clients for Black Friday. Like, it's...

• 22:52Speaker 01

  Guys, if you're listening to this podcast and you know how to run sales and you have like some proof that you've run sales for yourself or for some other clients, or you could build that for clients, you need to be reaching out to them approximately August every year. Actually, a really cool thing happened. So we actually brought in a copywriter, an extra copywriter for this week, and he reached out to us cold, reached out to me cold in August with an email which was like, "Is your Black Friday sale planned already?" Something like that. And he's here now, sitting in the office, helping us with our campaign, just because we have so many campaigns running and so many emails going. And I thought that was like

• 23:32Speaker 01

  a really clever way to reach out to us. Like, copywriters and people who can build things and build little, kind of neat little shop ideas for people during the Black Friday, they're needed everywhere.

• 23:49Greg Isenberg?

  Shh, don't tell anyone, but I've got 30-plus startup ideas that could make you millions, and I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million-plus businesses. I've compiled them into one simple database, compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast. But the main thing is, most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat sheet. The Idea Bank is your startup shortcut.

• 24:33Greg Isenberg?

  Just click below to get access. Your next cash-flowing business is waiting for you. Yeah, so that's like another startup idea, which is, so you can go and build the software and/or you can actually create the Black Friday agency.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  Yes. Oh, my God. Yes. Yes. And then you can... That's actually brilliant. No, it sounds like, I know there's going to be people in your audience who are going like, "Yeah, whatever," but actually, that's excellent.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  That's a really good idea. Like, well, yeah, that's really good. I love that. That would work. It's like, because all of the ads are going to be, it's your biggest week of the year. Don't squander it. Don't flub it, you know?

• 25:18Greg Isenberg?

  Don't flub it.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Oh, man, that's really good. We need to.

• 25:23Greg Isenberg?

  We might have to do that one. We might have to find a team and invest in it.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  I mean, we help people run their Black Friday campaigns, but just from a strategic point of view, just like telling them what they should do, like, and helping them with the copy and stuff. And we've got all the teams literally sitting here. They've flown in for this week and we're just doing that. But an agency that proactively reaches out to companies, e-commerce stores, and is like, by the way, like, you're, I can double your sales during this week. I will not, you don't pay me. I'll just take a cut of the, just the revenue from this sale. Come on. We're, so with, with what we're doing, just for transparency,

• 26:08Speaker 01

  we're only taking a cut of the money that's made. So it's, it's kind of like, uh, it's not a no-brainer because we take a big cut, but it is kind of a no-brainer because they, these companies weren't going to run these sales in the first place. So it's, it's like, uh, it is a bit of a win-win. That dude, a Black Friday-focused agency, which in general, campaigns, right? So what is Black Friday? Black Friday is a campaign. And all of these campaigns, so we run, every year, we run a summer sale campaign. We run a Black Friday campaign. We've now started to piggyback on the Prime Day campaign, the Prime Day sale, and we're looking for other, like, times of the year to piggyback. For example, like back to school, things like this.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Piggybacking on events that happened throughout the year and running campaigns during these events, a lot of like SaaS people, because as you know, a lot of SaaS people are like anti ads and ads suck and all marketing sucks. It all has to be organic. That's fine. But there are massive opportunities. We just looked at a lot of companies now who are running these types of things, including Apple. Oh, the big, great Apple are running Black Friday sales. There's just a massive opportunity out there to grow your business by piggybacking on these things and running campaigns during these times where people

• 27:35Speaker 01

  are expecting to be receiving campaigns. It feels like a no brainer to me if you can do it in a way that's aligned with your brand. And you know what I mean? You know what I mean?

• 27:48Greg Isenberg?

  I don't know if I asked for your life story over there.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  Ah, shit, you got me with my own. You got me with my own poison.

• 27:56Greg Isenberg?

  Okay, so can I show you one last really cool Black Friday sale?

• 28:02Speaker 01

  Please.

• 28:03Greg Isenberg?

  So you got me thinking about it because four Sigmatic, the one that you just showed is kind of like a game. And let me share my screen. So I got this email from Bodega. Bodega is a retail shop and they sell streetwear. So I opened it up. They sent me like an email a week. I never opened it up, but I got got with this one because they say, there's a $200 Bodega gift code in this email. Like, okay, you're giving me $200. Let's go. Got to open. So she's open. Then I say, oh yeah, this code right here is worth $200. Side

• 28:43Greg Isenberg?

  note, I actually like, I love how their their copy is, right? It feels like they're writing me a personal email. Problem is, it's missing a few characters. Could be numbers or letters. Whoever can solve it and check out with it gets it. First come, first served. Have fun and good luck. And then they give you the discount code. So this is taking a promo code and turning it into a game, a treasure hunt type thing. Really cool.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  That's cool. I've never seen that before. I've not seen a company do this.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  And it's interesting because that getting a $200 gift voucher for a company that sells stuff that probably is under $200 is almost like we've just got free stuff for you.

• 29:28Greg Isenberg?

  Exactly.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  That's very cool. While you were showing me that, I was thinking of another one, but I can't remember what it was.

• 29:38Greg Isenberg?

  So wait, while I was showing it to you, you weren't listening. You were thinking about your own thing.

• 29:42Speaker 01

  You know, on this podcast, my only goal is to make sure that your audience is happy. And so I'm trying to think of stuff the whole time. And, uh, you know, because if they don't get, if they don't get what they want, uh, they'll, they'll just attack. That's, that's it. Um, are you, the actual important question is, what are you buying this Black Friday week? Like, what, what things are you buying?

• 30:06Greg Isenberg?

  Um, that's a good question. Like really boring stuff. Like I, I, I took stock of all the things that I buy repeatedly. So I buy like the same protein powder. I started taking creatine by this company called Thorn by the same one. So I, I, I think it's like a good habit to look at the 20 things that you consume on an ongoing basis and just go and buy them at 20 to 50% off.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  Yes. That's a really good point. I mean, I do that on Amazon or that's what I did this morning. I just woke up and, and you know, you go into like the settings and it just says the buy again section. And I like bought detergent. Uh, I bought like some random, really boring stuff. But yeah, I'll generally go to like the websites of my favorite clothing companies or I'll, I'll go on the 8Sleep website, see if they've got anything interesting that I don't already have. Or yeah, that, that's a really good point. Just to jump on the things you're using already and just see if you can get like more of it. Which is why, like, I think one thing I buy a lot of is video games. So for me, for me, the biggest part of this week is the Steam sale, which starts tomorrow. So Wednesday and the

• 31:19Speaker 01

  Steam sale. Is another thing that's kind of cool because they build an entire like theme and brand around their sale. Like they get artists to create the art for it. It's like really special. It looks really cool. I'm really excited to just even see how the Steam sale looks this year. They like make it into a proper event. Another thing you can do for Black Friday, and I heard this from a guy called Connor, who's here with us at the moment in the office. And he said, there were these in China for Singles Day. Something that's common is to do like, almost like a QVC style thing, where you have like influencers on video, like for 12 hours during Black Friday

• 32:05Speaker 01

  or during Singles Day, just selling stuff and talking about them. So QVC's telemarketing style. We've thought about doing that because it would be fun. We've done like a one hour version of it where we were like, you know, doing an ironic version of QVC. But I think there's definitely something to playing around with this almost like semi ironic, semi funny, QVC style telemarketing thing, where you're like, there's only 20 of these left. Okay, now there's 10 of them left. I think that like, I recently saw Coldplay, don't judge me. I recently saw Coldplay on QVC. And I was fascinated by how good it actually was. Like they had, they had so many little Mifkey's, so many little interesting one-off things,

• 32:50Speaker 01

  so many bundles you couldn't get anywhere else. I'm not the biggest guy. I love their first two albums. I have to admit it, I'm not gonna lie. But there were so many things there where I was like, I'm not gonna listen to any of this, but I kind of want this handwritten thing. Or I kind of want this poster that no one is gonna be able to get after this session. I think it's kind of cool. Somehow it like, it just like appeals to something in me.

• 33:12Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, I wonder, I wonder, you know, thinking about the ad strategy for a live stream, like, could you create a live stream on X and then promote it? Like, I wish there was an ad unit that you can promote. I mean, of course, you can go and do like static images and be like, there's a live stream, click it, opens up the live stream. But I wonder if there's an ad arbitrage here.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  We're running, I mean, we're going to spend at least 100K on just our own ads this week. I hope you see our ads, they're really silly this year. They're, they're very, very, very silly. I think what I would do is, I would have ads running three days before, I would have ads running on the Monday for an event that's going to happen on the Thursday before Black Friday, just so you have some time. And the ads would be leading to like a fun waiting page for people to register for the live event. And maybe if you register before the live event starts, you're given some sort of discount code to use. So you can use that discount code on top of whatever it is that you're going to be seeing during this live stream. I think that would work really well, and I think that would like get a lot, actually,

• 34:19Speaker 01

  I want to do that. Now that I've said it, now I actually want to do it. So yeah, you have a live event the day before Black Friday, and people, you're sending ads to a landing page, which is a waiting list, which unlocks a discount code that can be used during the session. That would work.

• 34:37Greg Isenberg?

  Beautiful. Keep us posted.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  Black Friday agency, done.

• 34:42Greg Isenberg?

  Done, alright. Jonathan Courtney, Jaded the Ice Cream, J Ice Cream, the Unscheduled CEO for, you know, the Unscheduled J Ice Cream, thank you for being here, sharing with the alpha. We appreciate you.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  Thank you so much. I saw, maybe I'll, I saw in your comments, people like, wondering like, why am I sharing all this information?

• 35:07Speaker 01

  I just find it really enjoyable to be able to nerd out with someone and talk about all the stuff. Like, again, I do not have a Black Friday agency, although now we, we have to create one. And I don't, I also don't really have anything, like, it's really nice that people are reaching out, but I don't really have any, I can't, I'm not, we're not doing agency work for this kind of stuff. So I think just stay tuned to the podcast, that's the, that's the way to, to find out more cool stuff about this.

• 35:38Greg Isenberg?

  I appreciate you. Alright, my man, I'll catch you later.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  We are out.