Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sam Baker. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Sam, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Almost all entrepreneurs have had to decide whether to start now or later? There are always pros and cons for waiting and so we’d love to hear what you think about your decision in retrospect. If you could go back in time, would you have started your business sooner, later or at the exact time you started?

I often think about the 10 years I worked in corporate before finally starting my own business. During that time, I spent a lot of time thinking about the entrepreneurs I knew who left college and started working for themselves right away, and wishing I’d done the same. But now that I’m officially celebrating two years in business, I couldn’t be more grateful for those 10 years of corporate “training.” Someone once told me that you should think about your early career years as education that you’re paid for. I’m so glad I leaned into that training for a full decade before starting my own business.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m Sam Baker and I transform underperforming ecommerce sites into powerful selling tools that help my clients generate double-digit incremental revenue each year.

My ecommerce background includes web optimization at Abercrombie & Fitch, digital marketing at Vera Bradley and consulting clients such as Under Armour and Intercontinental Hotel Group. My consultancy specializes in A/B Testing, UX improvements, and Personalization.

DTC brands come to me when they are making $5M+ each year, but know they need support in scaling to the next level. Oftentimes, their conversion rate or AOV isn’t where they want it to be, or they have a difficult time turning buyers into loyal customers.

My favorite consulting experience is when I can present statistically significant data that shows my clients they’ve made millions (yes millions!) of dollars off of a strategy I recommended.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

For some reason, I assumed that there’s this pool of consultants and business leaders out there who know exactly what to do to get results for their clients and organizations – like a turnkey secret solution that everyone was hiding. What I realized was – there’s no secret answer. Every successful brand has to test into the “perfect” strategy for success. And it’s the people who know how to run tests and then make smart decisions off of the results – who are able to make a big difference for their clients’ businesses.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

No consultant can be an expert in the entire DTC landscape, so it’s really my team that shines to fill in the gaps. So, I spend a lot of time looking for contractors who I really enjoy working with – that means they’re experts in their fields and truly love what they do. So to me, maintaining a high morale is doing everything I can to make sure my team can focus on doing what they love 80% of the time. There will always be tough conversations and boring tasks that are a part of serving a client well. But if my team and I can work together to keep that to 20%, it helps keep morale high.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sambakerconsulting.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sambaker26/