I told you last week about the in-person training I ran on Black Friday prep. 15 people, 350 slides, an 8 hour talk, and the thing is nonstop..workbooks, actions, things people NEED to do before BFCM. 

And we were talking to a range of founders and their teams who just cracked it and are scaling into their success. Shit's working, they know there's enough product to sell today, they know there's a big sale upcoming..but they haven't REALLY strained their limits of inventory yet, or how much they can invest in right now to increase ad spend when it makes the most sense.

I know that spot cause I lived it. I told you about last Black Friday and how we didn't have the inventory at BREZ to do anything “big.” Was still a couple hundred thousand in the few days but it wasn’t like a $1mm day… I digress… I told you a whole issue about why sitting that one out was the right call.

But right call or not, the part of the reason we were even making that call in November is because we didn’t have our eyes on the three clocks back in September.

There are 3 calendars and clocks that are always starting:

1. Intention (of event)

Right now is the cheapest traffic you're going to have for the rest of the year, so the question is:

Do you have the cash flow to invest in audience growth right now, in preparation for what the sale is going to be?

2. Inventory (of hero SKUs)

Can you afford to increase sales today to push ad spend? Cause doing that increases your average sell-through velocity, which you did not plan for..this is a new thing you're doing.

Do you have enough inventory to do that?

Are you going to run out by the time Black Friday is here?

Cause if you are, you shouldn't actually be increasing spend now. You won't have the inventory come the biggest buying moment of the whole year, maybe.

3. Shipping (of said inventory)

Can you GUARANTEE shipping to your customer is going to be on time, or that shipping of your inventory TO you is going to be here on time?

What we learned across a handful of clients, a handful of reports, is that anything you're buying today is going to be as cost effective as possible. 

So be realistic with yourself. If you aren't willing to increase spend today, and you don't have the inventory to do so, Black Friday could potentially already be lost. And it's only September.

Last week I asked whether you should even run Black Friday the way you think you should, and whatever you landed on, the clock on it already started.

Hit reply and tell me which of these 3 you might be behind on this year… Happy to give my thoughts on the next best foot forward.

Otherwise, see you next week.

- Shack