Get the Most Out of Your Agency Feat. Shero Commerce Co-Founder & CEO, Beth Shero

Speaker A: Welcome to Shaping E Commerce with Iron Plane. This is where we talk about e commerce development solutions, digital marketing and all things E commerce. Be sure to check out the description below each video to find additional resource links and show notes. We upload new videos each day. Please like and subscribe to our channel.

Speaker B: Welcome back to another episode of Shaping E Commerce. I'm Tim Bucciarelli, Director of Engagement for Iron Plane and we're continuing our conversation today on the topic of how to get the most out of your e commerce agency. Digging into the details of relationships and uh, really what uh, goes into having a very successful relationship with your agency. And today I'm uh, joined by Beth Shiro from Shiro Commerce. She's the co founder and CEO of Shiro Commerce. And uh, I was almost a client of hers uh, many years back and um, just had a very positive experience uh, which led me to keep in touch with her when I came to work at Iron Plane myself. So Beth, thank you very much for joining us today.

Speaker A: Thanks so much Tim for having me. Uh, I'm excited to talk today and like you said, we do have a little bit of an interesting past that is unique in this conversation. So I'm excited to see where it goes.

Speaker B: Yeah, so I think um, just to fill in the story, I think um, it was, you know, we had gone out and done an RFP for um, a specialty food e commerce website and we were looking at maybe three or four agencies and several of them came through and I met with you know, uh, and I think it was like Iron Plane and Shiro Commerce were the two that landed in the, in the last um, round. And while we chose to work with Iron Plane, I just remember the interaction that we had was very positive and it was like, you know what, if it's not a fit, that's totally fine. We'll keep in touch if it ever comes up later then you know. And that, that was like, that's. It was such a refreshing sales approach to me, um, that um, I've actually found much more comfort with in my own sales approach as an agency. So uh, that was probably more than 10 years ago. So anyway, glad to keep in touch. Yes, yes, um, Shiro Commerce, obviously an agency, E Commerce agency. Give uh, us a little bit of background on the agency itself. What type of work are you doing? What type of clients?

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Let me um, just back up a little bit further and talk about myself. Um, just so you can understand our history because I'm the co founder with my partner Gentian and now I'm the CEO, um, so I actually have a background in graphic design and front end development and project management. Um, so I came from print which is interesting, ah, evolution of how I became into this digital world. Um, but what I really love about digital is that it's evolving so quickly and um, it's forever changing. You have to constantly innovate, grow, learn with it and be ahead of the curve to stay relevant. And I think that's like a lot of um, like the roots of share of like how we started is um, I worked for an agency beforehand before we started Sharo and they weren't providing the best customer service. So just kind of linking it back to our topic. Um, and I really couldn't align ethically with what they were trying to do. Like you know, I think if you're gonna partner with an agency you should really, um, it should be a mutual partnership. Um, you should deliver on what you say, uh, hit goals, you know, add value to that partnership on both sides. But like as an agency developing something, um, I don't want to just take, take, take. Right. Like I'm always customer service first, uh, want to give as much value to our customers as possible. So because of that experience that I had initially coming into this world, um, it's kind of like in our roots and in my heart of providing excellent customer service and value. And like you said from our interaction, um, not everybody is a one size fits all. Right. So just seeing how you align with the agency that you pick is so important. So at Sharo, yes we are focusing on commerce, but we're actually broadening that more and focusing on digital. So doing marketing, SEO, PPC, um, WordPress, content websites, Drupal, we're really trying to broaden our reach um, so that we can offer a 360 approach. So understanding your business, um, you know, fulfillment, how you're processing orders, all those things so that we are more ingrained in your business as a partner and can actually make better recommendations. Because when you just understand like this little piece of commerce, there's so much more that goes into it and if you don't have that insight, it's really hard to make best suggestions and we really approach things in an agnostic way. So um, we are offering different e commerce platforms like Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce, Shopify, um, so that we can find and recommend the tools that make the best sense for the business needs. Um, so like that's us in a nutshell. How I got to this point is actually I fell in love with Magento back when, uh, you know, back in 2010, um, and we wanted to have our own e commerce website and that's how I got started in the commerce world actually and fell in love with Magento. And I was a front end developer on Magento at that point, which is interesting. And then transitioned into sales and solution architecture how we met. Um, and you know I just, it's really helped me grow and understand from being a merchant myself and then transitioning and seeing how we can help our customers. And then obviously I didn't um, just stay there on the solution architecture side. I became the CEO of Sharo and now I'm the CEO so I've really pretty much worn every hat you can imagine at Sharo. Um, but I really love what we're doing, how we're growing and we're continuing to evolve in offering um, global solutions and really focusing on adding value and excellent customer service. Um, so I'm excited to talk about the topic that we're going to talk about today. Yeah, no, no, that's too long of an explanation.

Speaker B: No, totally good, totally good. Um, it's interesting because I feel like you can go one of two ways. This is more kind of broadly on the topic of agencies. You can either niche down and really focus on one or two particular platforms or aspects of an industry or uh, technology or you can broaden and I see agencies choosing to do one or the other recently where they're like you guys are expanding a little bit more and like Isaiah at Trellis also they've been expanding a little bit more. Um, whereas Iron Plane, I think we've niched down a little bit into um, really narrowing our focus. So it's just interesting um, that agencies are finding slightly different paths, um, and philosophically still hold on to that very strong core of customer service and finding the best solutions for their clients.

Speaker A: Um, absolutely. Yeah. I mean our strategy with the different platforms has really evolved from learning what provides the best solution for our customers. Right. Like I really felt uncomfortable selling uh, Adobe Commerce to customers that it just didn't make sense for. And then they had this large overhead and you know, it hurt them. I didn't feel comfortable with that. So that's when we started to branch out and look at other solutions for our customers that really like our services but maybe that wasn't a great fit for them anymore. So that's kind of how it started for transparency.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's exactly. Actually I should say even though we have nichedown, um, we are kind of a two platform agency. So bigcommerce Partner, Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source. So those are our two. Um, we haven't jumped on, you know, shopware or Shopify or commerce tools or you know, so we're, we're narrowing in those two right now. But um, yeah, there's a lot out there that agencies can cover ground with. If you could touch on a few of the areas that you think are particularly important, um, to keep an eye out for as merchants are working with an agency, maybe are struggling with an agency and really want to get the best out of that relationship.

Speaker A: Totally. Yeah. Um, so the first one which is probably pretty obvious to most people, but it's finding that right partner, um, knowing that you need to find an agency and how to go about it. Um, I get past this a lot actually. So it's interesting that you raise this. Um, so I think you know, to be successful in finding an agency that aligns with your needs is a, you need to know what your needs are. Right. Um, at least have some high level goals of like I want to achieve these three to five things. Um, it can be as simple as that. Obviously the more information you have the easier it is. Um, you also want to find an agency that has skilled uh, developers, specialists in what you actually need. So um, evaluating that, you know, they're actually certified, they have sites that are maybe similar or not even in the necessarily the same industry but like similar size, um, I think is important. And um, also values, right? Because at the end of the day we're you, you will work with this agency a lot, probably more than you think. You'll interact with them. It is a partnership. So you, you want to make sure that you align um, with the values that you have similar beliefs of how you want to approach things. Um, also that they are somewhat likable. You don't want to have to partner with an agency that drives you crazy. I mean it would just create a lot more friction. Um, I know it sounds simple but people forget that you actually have to like work through challenges with this agency. It's not always going to be rainbows. There will be hard times that you have to have open and transparent communication to get through it and be stronger as a partner together. Um, so if at the start you're just um, not really jiving with them or have a bad feeling, it's probably for a good reason and they're probably just not a great fit, you know. Um, so that's the first part. Um, so the second part I would say is like once you pick them the discovery and kickoff is really important so that you can manage expectations. Things are clearly documented, you can align on what you're mutually going to do, like what your team internally will do and what the agency will do to know what lanes you're in. Also what goals you can circle back on to know that you're actually being successful together. Um, and then I think the third one after that, you know, if it's a new project, obviously, um, getting launched is pretty important. And then kind of like reflecting on what went well and didn't go well. Um, and then a lot of times like the way we work, our customers aren't here just like to turn out their website and call it a day. Like we really do practice partnership and have our customers long term so we do have them on retainers for different services afterwards. Um, so creating like a roadmap that you're um, providing different, uh, meeting different goals through different features or you're doing marketing campaigns together, things like that, so that you actually have mutual goals together so you can feel like you're achieving things. I think is important because sometimes when you're on a retainer afterwards, it can often feel stagnant. I think for some merchants that have, you know, come and spoken to me in the past, they're like, just feels like nothing's happening, you know, and it's um, I think creating those goals is so important and also just like kind of doing a reset even sometimes of like, hey, we're just kind of coasting right now. What do we do to get to X? You know, and like mutually figuring that out. Um, because when you do partner for a long time, it can feel, or you may give the impression that it's monotonous. Right? It's kind of just like some of the things feel very repetitive. So that's where like it's important just say, hey, we're doing this new thing for a customer. Um, it might help you like uh, from the agency side and just like really being the advocate for the customer of how they can save money, you know, this is what the agency, agency should be doing for you at that point. And if they're not, then it might be time to find somebody new, you know, or if you're just having so many issues on the website, um, you know, we've had a number of like saved projects where the project just didn't launch or launch and had so many problems. So that can be really challenging in a conversation itself about, you know, as an agency, how to tackle it from the customer side. Um, But I think that if you feel like your site wasn't developed properly, I think it's okay for you to get a second opinion, you know, and um, get someone else to look at it. You do have to like measure that with a grain of salt because the other provider is always going to find something wrong. Um, that's just our nature as developers. Yeah. And you're in the business to make money, so. But I think you do have a right to get a second opinion and see how you could do better. Sometimes a fresh pair of eyes doesn't hurt. Or if there's something you want to do, um, that your agency maybe doesn't specialize in, I think it's okay to bring in a specialist for certain projects. We do that sometimes. Um, so just collaborating and really just trying to provide the most value in helping your customer grow. So like if you're a merchant, you should be looking for all those things.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that, um, you know, what strikes me is that this is not the type of project where it's one and done, where you come in for six months. I mean, I guess it could be you come in for six months and then you leave. But most of the time that's not the most, kind of the smartest approach. Because if they've spent six months on working with you on your website, they probably know that website better than anyone else either within your company or at another agency. And so then transitioning away from that agency to internal or some other agency without them there, like it really seems to me that that long term relationship is really valuable to the client. Um, and these are complex projects. And uh, so one of the things I wanted to talk about are kind of expectations. And two things I wanted to talk about is hourly, um, rates and the challenge for high quality agencies. Uh, and what they're faced with when people are saying, I can get this same work done for $65 an hour using an offshore agency or you know, something along that and offshore. We can be honest about what offshore means because most everyone uses offshore. Um, but there are distinctions, clear distinctions between quality developers who charge the going rate and I guess what I'll say questionable developers who charge a dramatically lower rate. It's a struggle as an agency and as a client because you look over here and you see this really inexpensive opportunity and everything looks like they should be able to do it. But then you've got this other agency who says, no, no, no, you know, we're really top notch and you're going to have to pay us Double that. And that for a client is challenging. So I'm curious to get your take on that.

Speaker A: Yeah. So what I've experienced is, um, yes, you can definitely pay less. Right. Um, however, so like, you pay less upfront. What I've seen is it usually costs you more in the long run. So you're spending, I don't know, like, oh, you're like, oh, I saved, I saved half of what I would have spent. But it's actually costing you more typically from what I've experienced because, um, it doesn't set you up for growth and success. There is, you usually have to manage those developers a lot more. So if you're not technical, they will just spend so much more time getting stuff done. So it actually creates a longer timeline on top of it. And the price tag might be, I don't know, 50 grand at the beginning, but by the end they actually like just keep adding on because they didn't realize all of the work that they needed to accomplish. So if there's a lot of scope creep.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, and at the end the work they do may not be done, uh, to the best standards. So you may have to scratch that and start over anyways. So, you know, quality is way more important in this scenario. Especially if you have a site that's doing a lot of transactions, um, you really want it to be done properly so you have less issues long term. And additionally, you know, the better developers will develop in a way that you have less technical debt. So it's kind of like you're the engine in your car. You take care of it, it's brand new, you change your oil, maintain it, it's not going to explode in a year. But say you bought like a car from some random guy off the street and he never changes oil and you bought it, it's going to explode next week and you're not going to be able to drive anywhere. Yeah, um, it's kind of like the risk you're putting yourself in. If I had to summarize it, um, not saying that there aren't great developers that you could potentially find, but I think you definitely have to manage them very wisely and have the experience to know what you want as well. They're not going to be able to recommend solutions as easily because they just don't have the experience typically.

Speaker B: Yeah. And there's a huge difference between getting one or two different freelancers who specialize. One's a front end freelancer, one's a backend freelancer, you know, but you're lacking some of the uh, other elements or you could potentially be lacking some of the other elements because there is really a team nature in a lot of the development work that goes on. Not only in the kind of unified DevOps operations, you know, in uh, staging and development and tracking and production releases, um, but just the interactions within the organization. Uh, at least from what I've seen. There's so much interaction that goes on that elevates everyone's work every day. And I think that you lack that in this kind of um, go cheap mentality, it seems to me anyway.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I mean when you can collaborate with other developers, you're learning at such a greater rate. Um, and it's not like the world is on your shoulders. So like if you do hit a point where you're like I'm having such a rough day, I can't get through this problem that I'm trying to solve. There are like five or ten people in the room or whatever it is that can come in and be like, oh, I've already solved that, here's the solution. So they solve it quicker or they're like, let's collaborate and learn and how to solve it, you know, together. So it just makes it that much easier for you to like move forward quicker in my view from what I've

Speaker B: experienced now I'm not, I'm going to um, throw another one. And again as a former merchant on Magento, these are things that I've experienced and I know that you've heard of from other clients but uh, in software development and e commerce development it's like um, you know, old school projects. This is, you know, back in the 70s, 80s I guess. Um, you think of it as waterfall. So it's like really thoroughly defined and you've got the specifications and you deliver to those specifications and you, you deliver it, it's fixed price and then you test all the specifications and you give thumbs up and you pay the bill. Okay. And now it's much different. Uh, you've got agile and you don't have really much specification up front. You've got a general idea and some specification and use cases and you work through development and then you test it, trial it, adjust and so forth. Um, but at some point you still are making a deliverable, right? And I'm curious about bugs and I remember it took a little while for me to adjust because as a merchant I felt like, well it's a bug so you, the developers didn't do something right. Why am I now paying an additional 10 hours of work to fix the bugs that your code caused. Now I've learned since then, but this is an interesting topic to me because I totally understand a client perspective. Like, uh, can you just give me your perspective on that?

Speaker A: What the cost, what the merchant should expect from a bundle.

Speaker B: Yeah, right, exactly. Right, exactly, yes. Should they be paying, you know, like, and where's the line drawn? Because everyone has to have a line. Like, I guess we don't like to work in a blame environment. But, but some, some clients really want to point a finger and say this caused this and that's not my fault and I shouldn't have to pay for that.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, no, I get what you're saying. I think some people definitely take this to their advantage. So I can see it from a merchant perspective, like how it's concerning. Right. Um, in software engineering development, you're always going to have a bug. I mean every tool that you use has updates and fixes bugs. Even Apple has bugs sometimes, you know, so it's just part of the nature of development, um, how much you should pay. You know, you have to make sure that your team is um, qualified to do your project. And goes back to the topic we were just talking about with having the experience and you have to pay a little bit more. Right. Um, but you'll have less bugs, um, to make sure that your project's architected and developed in a way that you don't have as much technical debt. Um, because then the bugs that you have are within reason, like bugs that are just going to happen by nature. Um, if you have excessive amount of bugs, it's because you have technical debt. And it's like someone once explained it to me as like, like you have spaghetti and you're sticking the code together with scotch tape. And I was laughing so much because I was like, that explains everything for someone that doesn't know what bad code looks like. But it's literally like you're scotch taping it together and eventually it breaks, um, and you're throwing spaghetti against the wall and nothing sticks. Um, so you can imagine that would be blowing up a lot. Um, so you definitely want to make sure that the code is developed in a way that it is done to standard. You know, you have code reviews automation on code so that things that uh, can be caught proactively even without someone looking at it to fix it. Then go in and fix it before it's actually released, you know, to your staging environment. And then obviously having um, QA review it before it gets to the merchant. So you want to make sure that your agency has these processes in place so that before it gets to you, they vetted it. Um, again, you're still going to have bugs that pop up, but that minimizes a lot of the issues that you might be facing that you feel like, why should I be paying for this? M. Does that help and make sense?

Speaker B: It does, it does. And I think that this is getting back to your idea, um, of setting expectations. Like when you go through that discovery and onboarding phase, um, setting the expectations from the point of view of the agency. The work we do is like a mechanic. Every hour we spend working on your website is a billable hour. Uh, and whether that's a project manager or front end dev, DevOps or backend dev, like these are all people who are working on your behalf and their work is billable. That's just fair. And that's how it's done. Setting those expectations up front. Phone call is billable, Meeting is billable. You know, slack interactions is billable. Like, these are just time spent on your behalf. It's billable. But setting that expectation, everyone, uh, at this point, from my understanding, seems to get that pretty easily. Um, but I think setting those expectations up front is really valuable, uh, so that you can focus on, um, less, kind of less of the conflict potential and really focus on the work that needs to be done.

Speaker A: Um, yeah, I, I couldn't agree more. It's really expectation setting, communication. Um, it's so critical to making sure that you build a partnership full of trust, goodwill, you know, making sure you feel comfortable and know that you're getting what you expect to get out of the relationship and what your project should be. You know, when you start doubting it, that's usually when I would say that, like, you need to work on the relationship or it's just like not a good fit anymore, you know, for whatever reason, um, because you definitely have to trust each other, that you're, you're doing your best effort to, you know, fix the problems and move forward in a positive way, you know.

Speaker B: Yeah, you've used the word trust several times in this conversation. And I think that that just, it really strikes me, um, when you understand that this is less of a transactional relationship and more of a partnership relationship, Trust really does come into play because unless a client has a really technically knowledgeable team, they really depend on their agency to do the work that they need done. And it's a little bit of a black box. Like you put money in, you don't see what's actually going on behind the scenes and you hope that what comes out is totally what you need and on target and you understand you may need to adjust it, but that trust has to be there. Uh, and I think that going in with the expectation that it's going to be this partnership arrangement rather than a transaction, I think can help start off with that trust as a foundation.

Speaker A: Yeah. And that goes back to what we were talking about, the rates of different developers. Right. When you're with an agency, you have a team that's providing you a service and building that relationship with you. When you go to like a uh, contractor, that's less money, it's much more transactional. At that point they could run away, they could disappear. It doesn't matter to them. Right. They're just like a contractor typically. But an agency is there to stand by you, um, and they're there to grow their business with you. So it's a different relationship as well. We think of it that way, you know, um, so you might be paying a little bit more with an agency, but long term you have the stability and you're minimizing your risk.

Speaker B: Yeah, a lot of what, what this strikes me as is insurance. A little bit of insurance, you pay a little bit more for an agency who's got the infrastructure, the skills, the experience team. Um, and that's just a little bit of insurance, uh, that you're going to get quality code, that if you know something really goes wrong, they're still going to support you. Like, like one of the things I've been amazed. Companies come to us and they're like, well, we don't really know where our code is. Like I don't think it's a repository. I think it's just done on the live site through the host. And I'm like, okay, yeah, concerning, uh, and then other times, you know, we might like do some research on their behalf, do a quick audit and we, we're looking at the um, you know, publicly accessible files and we're like, okay, you probably don't want to those files in that publicly accessible area in root. Um, anyway, my point is that there is a lot of benefit that's kind of unseen when you're working with an agency who knows what they're doing. Um, so I guess tooting both of our own horns here because I feel like we're both in agencies that are at that uh, level of skill. But I think it's really important, uh, for, for clients, for businesses who really want to invest in E Commerce. It's not inexpensive and it's worth the investment, uh, if it's a critical component of your business, if E commerce is more like an afterthought and you don't perceive it to grow much over the next five years or so, okay, maybe you can get by with something, you know, less sophisticated or, you know, a team with fewer skills. But, um, if it's at all important to your business, it strikes me that it's really, um, important to invest, uh, properly. Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, the way I like to explain it is imagine if you have a retail store, right? You would want it to look really good when people walk by, right? Like, you're gonna make your windows look good. You're gonna have the best products in there. Your customer, like, your salespeople are gonna be like, hi. Right? So you. The way you treat your retail store, if you had one, um, is like, with care and love because you're investing so much to make that sale and get people in the door. So your E Commerce store is essentially the same thing. It's just digital. Um, so you. It's your face of your company, but in a grander way that the world can see it. So why not invest properly? You know, unless it's, like, enough, you know, I don't know. Maybe you're doing an experiment, you know, but, um, yeah, I definitely think people sometimes forget how much power has if you use it. Right.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You know, um, it can gain you a lot of return on your investment.

Speaker B: So, um, one thing that I wanted to finish up with is, you know, a challenging situation, but it happens where, let's say, the client feels like it's not working out and they want to, uh, look at alternatives. You know, that's a little bit of a tricky situation from both sides of that relationship. Um, for merchants who are considering shifting from one agency to another, how would you advise them to proceed? I know that's a big question, but, you know, like, let's. Yeah. What's the best case scenario? I guess maybe that's an easier way to put it that you could advise a client on there.

Speaker A: That's a good way to approach it. Um, because I was going to start by saying that I think it really depends on where the relationship is before you make that decision. Because if it's in a decent place, I'm not saying it has to be, like, best, because obviously you wouldn't be leaving. But if it's in a decent place where you're still communicating, um, and there is some level of trust there, um, then just having open conversation with Them, I think, is the best that you can do and out of respect. Um, you know, but if it's not in a good place, I think you have to handle it a little bit more with care. Because sometimes, you know, people do weird things in those scenarios. Like, I'm just gonna say it. Um, I'm not saying that that's something that we do at Cheryl. I'm just saying what I've seen happen and I would never want that to happen to anybody. So like based, best case scenario is, um, here's, here's an example of when this might happen. Um, that's like it happens all the time. Like your marketing director resigns and you get a new one in and they're like, I have this friend over here that I've been working with them for years. I want to work with them now. Sorry, I have to. We have to make a switch. Right? So like, it's nothing personal at that point. It's really just a matter of the nature of the business. Let's call it right. So there's nothing personal or anything that you did wrong. Um, so as the merchant in that scenario, I would go to the agency and say, hey, in the next two months we're going to make this change. Or you know, give them a grace period so they know it's happening and say, we, we really love you guys. Um, but unfortunately for business purposes, this decision has been made and we want to make it as, ah, you know, mutual as possible. So like, we would like you to help with the transition and pay you to do that. You know, I think that's the like, most respectful way to handle it. Um, and even say, maybe I'll give you a testimonial or, you know, encourage, you know, say, or I have a friend that might need your services and I'll recommend you things like that. So it doesn't feel so like, you know, so they feel appreciated, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, and also that way they're, you know, nobody likes a breakup. Right? It's essentially what it is. Um, but that way, you know that they're putting their best effort to help you transition in a successful way because they have so much knowledge that you want them to possibly transfer to this new company. Right. Um, so like paying them for documentation, for maybe training the other agency, um, whatever you think it's going to take. I just think the more you can proactively do that for the transition to be successful, the better. Um, not every agency is going to play nice though. Like, that's just unfortunate with the nature of the world. Um, in those cases, you know, if you see that someone's maliciously doing something, make sure you have full control over your site, your hosting, whatever's in your infrastructure so that you have the power to control it and move forward with the new agency.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Because in those cases, you don't want to play nice. You just need to be clear and set a clear boundary of like, we're making this switch and nobody gets in trouble. Sort of speak like they won't do anything bad. Nothing happens to your. Saying it's just like a clean break.

Speaker B: And this is, this is, um, it's interesting because some, some merchants feel stuck because they don't have the technical understanding right. To know, well, where is my code and how do I lock it down and how do I change, uh, admins and how do I, you know, cancel out these accounts and how do I manage my hosting? Like, they have, you know, depended on an agency for as many years as they have, and it really can present them with a, uh, with a challenge. And in those situations, I would say to your point earlier, getting a second opinion quickly and having somebody who can really advise you if you're not able to have those open and candid conversations with your existing agency, um, bringing someone in to advise you quickly and efficiently, just to protect your interests, I think is a good idea. Um, even if you end up paying a little bit more to do that.

Speaker A: Yeah. Or, you know, um, a lot of our customers have like someone internal, um, that kind of manages the project. Like, maybe isn't a technical person, but like, understands enough that they can help manage that and point people in the right direction, you know, like, so having that redundancy or backup of the knowledge of like, the history, I guess, of it is helpful, um, as well, like as you grow your commerce team, um, because you never, I mean, in any business you don't want to rely on one person. It's a huge risk. Like, you know, a, um, company came to us recently and this one gentleman was retiring and they had built, he had built the whole Magento site for like, since the beginning of Magento, and nobody knows how to do anything. And it's like literally in this one person's hands. And it's like. And he's like, I'm retiring next month. See you later. Uh, that's a little, That's a big risk from a business perspective. And, uh, it's a hard one to chew. And then you're really thrown for a loop, like what do I do? You know, so having backups is important in documentation, for sure.

Speaker B: That's when you move to Shopify, I think.

Speaker A: Yeah. Hold the plug.

Speaker B: That's right. Yeah.

Speaker A: Hope it doesn't break.

Speaker B: Right. Start fresh. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Beth, uh, thank you for talking with us about this. Is there anything that we missed in this kind of agency, client, uh, relationship?

Speaker A: Uh, I think, you know, we touched the main things. I'm happy to answer questions. Um, it. There are so many scenarios that happen, so if anybody needs advice, I'm more than happy to help, um, point them in the right direction at least. Maybe it can't. Obviously I'm not going to solve everyone's problems. That would be nice to have a magic wand. Um, but I just, you know, I always think of where my heart's at and making sure that people can at least get to a place where they can be successful and out of a difficult situation. Um, and sometimes, like you said, an outside perspective, um, can kind of help clear the way and make it fresh. Right. Because it's hard when you're in it to see what's going on.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think you guys take a similar approach to Iron Plane in the sense, like, we love talking about E commerce, whether we end up working with you or not, you know.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: We really like fielding questions, providing advice, making contacts, referrals, whatever it is. So I think, um, we'll include, uh, a link to the Shiro website, um, uh, in the show notes here. But you know, it's just nice to expose, um, kind of what we hope agencies are in the E commerce space and, um, really encourage merchants and businesses to demand that of their agencies because they don't deserve anything less. And there are a lot of really good agencies, uh, that you can work with.

Speaker A: Um, so yeah, you like, to your point, you should never feel you're being held hostage. Right. So, like, there's always a choice and a path forward. So just get the advice you need to make it happen. Yeah. You know.

Speaker B: Yeah. All right, well, we're going to wrap it there. Beth, thank you again very much for joining me today on Shaping E Commerce and thank you. We'll probably have you back for another session of some other e commerce topic in the future. Um, help our merchants learn a little bit more about, um, the e commerce world. Thanks again.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Thank you, Tim.

Speaker B: All right, take care.

Speaker A: Bye. For more insights on how to improve your E commerce website and for a free consultation, visit Ironplane.com follow us on social media and like and subscribe below.