I had one of the toughest days of my life just a couple of days ago. For two straight days I couldn’t sleep. It was like my body knew something was coming.

After tossing and turning on Friday I woke up at 4AM to a lawsuit for our new company Good Sport. It’s a silly trademark dispute but enough to make anyone pull their hair out. I then went to go on a run to blow off steam (marathon training remember?) and absolutely destroyed my calf/achilles and have been hobbling all weekend.

Later that morning I get a random bill for $217,000 from a vendor for trucking and importing. I then get a call telling me that our dream house that we applied for declined our offer. I drove an hour to the vet, only to find out that my dog has cancer again.

This all happened before 6PM.

Entrepreneurship is not sexy. Thanks to the Gary V’s of the world it has become glamorized. Sure there is no better feeling than working for yourself but the stress, sleepless nights and bullshit could eat you alive. If I’ve learned anything it makes you tough as fuck. Years ago a day like that would have paralyzed me and had me crying in bed. Today I’m sitting at the desk watching football and knowing life is going to be okay one way or another. Why? Because I’m already living my best life.

So many people are waiting for the perfect moment to live their life.

“I’ll start that business after I’ve saved up enough money”

“I’ll quit my job and stand up to my boss after I do this”

“I can’t do this because I have a kid”

“I can’t go to the gym because I am too busy”

Let me tell you something that other people probably won’t. Your life isn’t going to magically get better tomorrow. You’re not going to wake up with abs or a million dollar business. Your life will not improve. Unless you put in the fucking work. Start today. Not tomorrow. Learn to be happy with what you have. Because somebody sure as hell would trade your life for theirs in a second.

The More You Put Yourself Out There The Better Chance You Have to Succeed

For my married or in a relationship people remember the single days? The times when you didn’t want to leave your couch on a Friday night but you knew you had to get your ass up and dressed if you had any chance of finding your soulmate.

The same thing applies with business. You need to do things that don’t scale and you have to continue to put yourself out there. Go out for that coffee meet up. You may make a new friend. Hate public speaking? Me too. Sign up to do a talk. Hate podcasts? Do 15-20 and see if there’s any lift for your brand.

The sooner you get more comfortable doing the uncomfortable really good things start to happen.

For me, one of those good things was meeting Lisa Popovici who found out about me from my work with Gorgias when I used to host a podcast called My Biggest Lessons. I’m no longer recording the podcast but so many people loved it. About a year ago reached out to me because Lisa saw that I put up a post about my struggles with virtual assistants.

Our entire customer support team was based in the Philippines. They worked hard but no matter how hard I tried to manage and offer feedback, the customer service always sounded outsourced. Plus I had to deal with scheduling, staffing, and provide nonstop training. I would have loved to have a team here in the states where the language barrier wasn’t an issue, but paying $50K+ for customer support at our scale wasn’t an answer.

Lisa told me that she was building an AI solution for this and I was instantly intrigued. This was way before AI became super sexy and there was an AI solution for everything. This was machine learning at its finest and solved a huge problem for me. She told me I could I cut my customer service employee bill in half while having 100% better answers, and a million times faster response time. I was immediately in and became an advisor of Siena AI. 

So what’s it all about? Imagine a customer service that's not just automated but actually gets your customers. Their platform is all about understanding, empathizing, and solving problems in a way that's indistinguishably human. As time goes on Siena learns your business, common questions and objections and responds to your customers just like you would, unlike all of those shitty chatbots out there.

Their big wins?

1. Empathy like no other: Siena AI speaks your brand's language, ensuring every customer feels genuinely understood.

2. Efficiency redefined: Whether it's managing subscriptions or addressing complex queries, Siena AI handles it with the finesse of your best team member. Not to mention they do it across email, live chat, social media, or text.

3. Smart problem-solving: Their system is able to take action by using human-like reasoning and decision-making to navigate complex customer issues – it's like having a super-agent on your team.

Siena has helped us save over $2000 a month on customer service, while increasing response time by 300%. I’ve been hearing from a ton of readers about improving customer service and Lisa offered to give any reader of CROSSED Commerce 3 months free. Book a demo with their team here, and mention 'Chris Meade sent you'. It's a golden opportunity to elevate your customer service game.

Getting into Retail Workshop

This Tuesday at 5PM EST, I am hosting a FREE WORKSHOP on how to get your brand into retail.

I won’t have any sexy presentation made or slides to run you through. This will be an hour Q&A with me where we can answer the hard questions on a specific basis. We’ll cover things like how do you make your pitch, setting wholesale & distribution pricing, things to watch out for, how to advertise into the store and drive foot traffic and so much more.

I’m expecting this to fill up quickly so send me a reply back and I’ll add you to the call.

If you can’t make this no worries. We host weekly sessions like this inside The Founder’s Club and our waitlist is now open to the public. You can apply here.

That’s all I got for this week! Looking forward to seeing you all Tuesday!

See you there,

Chris