NOLL TILL 100 — ENGLISH TRANSCRIPT Episode 117: How to delegate without drowning in more work #117 English translation of the full Swedish conversation. Original timestamps preserved. Original audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl_f6YbWv8g [00:00:00] A warm welcome to a new episode of Noll till 100. As usual, I have Fredrik Ankarsköld with me. This week's episode has an exceptionally exciting theme. A new week, a fresh start. How are you, Fredrik? [00:00:15] I'm good and excited for the episode. We often sit there thinking: what are we going to talk about next week when we meet? [00:00:26] When we prepared this, I thought it was a very good and hot topic, especially for companies that have started turning over a few million and made their first hires. Before the summer… [00:00:40] …we talked about how to make a successful hire. Since then, we haven't talked that much about organisation, and perhaps we should. [00:00:51] You've talked a lot about recruiting. Do you find you have less on your plate or more as you hire more people? [00:01:02] It's a constantly recurring problem. In the little agency I run, Porobic Group, where I'm still CEO, I feel the hires have helped me delegate work. We can talk about the working methodology. [00:01:18] But in other brands, it's not always clear-cut. Have new senior hires helped Såpa, or do we just get more on the CEO's plate? Good question. Have hires helped Mockberg, or burdened the CEO even more with more heads, more people to take responsibility for and more direct reports? I don't know. [00:01:49] We'll cover that. Every founder probably recognises the problem: the more people you hire, the more problems and things to deal with land on your plate. How do you build yourself out of the company? [00:02:10] There's the claim: nobody can do it as well as I can. Exactly. You think you're best at most things and find it hard to let go. Even if you give someone an area of responsibility, how do you know the person is proactive and does the work… [00:02:31] …or reactive and waits for tasks? Perhaps even worse, asks permission before major or even minor changes. That's one of the first things most founders encounter. [00:02:51] It always starts at the top, with you, dear founder and entrepreneur. Unfortunately, it's your fault. Not everything in the company is solved by adding more heads. Most things aren't. The simple answer and the best tip I have for a distributed work structure and delegated tasks is clear communication. [00:03:26] Most things tend to work out with clear communication and expectations. A common mistake is hiring someone to solve a problem, a bit like throwing spaghetti at the wall. Without guidelines and rules, you hire in the hope that the person will solve every problem. [00:03:48] What do you think? That's probably true. You have a problem with, for example, the finances and don't know how to develop the P&L, cut costs or become more data-driven. Then you hire a CFO and think the person will solve everything. Instead, the person comes with more questions than answers, leading to more internal meetings, check-ins and reporting meetings. [00:04:24] Have we then built in a new problem or solved an existing one? Not entirely clear. Initially, it can mean more work, very likely even, so the staff can get good onboarding. [00:04:46] Almost always, it means more work initially. If you've made a good hire… It's difficult, because even a fantastic super A-player… [00:04:59] …in the wrong organisation is held back and doesn't reach their full potential. The person can even become a burden, while that same person in another company would have been fantastic, a rising star. I also look at how some abilities can be trained when you recruit. Or rather: I think all people can be trained, but is it worth it? Let's take an example. If I ran a McDonald's and hired someone, the easiest thing would be teaching them how to operate the till, fry the burgers, how many slices of cheese there should be and how much onion goes on. That's quite easy to… [00:05:43] …train. But the social skills, being service-minded, friendly, smiling and having a feel for service—I'm combining lots of little skills in that word—are harder to recruit for, or rather to train. [00:06:02] Very difficult, you're right. A lot of it is personality. Yes, but what we lump together as personality is really a collection of behaviours. [00:06:15] That's why I mean you can classify: when we recruit in this case, what's hardest to teach? Is it the till, compared with the personal behaviours, what they're like as a person and in how they deal with people? Then there are other cases. Perhaps you have an AI professor who's rough around the edges, a little eccentric, almost autistic in their behaviour. Okay, is it easier to teach someone AI computing or social behaviours? In that case, perhaps it's easier to train the social behaviour than to teach the knowledge needed for the work. [00:06:57] Good comparison. Everyone needs to ask that question before each hire: what's most important in the role, not just what is it supposed to do? [00:07:09] People rush into hiring. We need more people because the workload for you or the team is too high. Instead, there should be a roadmap for reducing the load without hiring. Is that possible when you're growing? Usually yes, with better processes, clearer communication and the resources already there. [00:07:40] One thing I repeatedly try to implement is fewer meetings. I usually say: ‘Managers and meetings kill creativity.’ Managers, people in charge and bosses of any kind, want more reports and check-ins. Sometimes that creates more problems than exist, because people want control and the feeling of control. Do you recognise that description, in your own company or others where you've worked? Yes, I usually divide it into two myself. [00:08:21] Makers and managers. Makers often need to sit with one task. The fewer meetings, the more work gets done. Managers want to know what's being done, and that can clash, because the manager… [00:08:41] …feels productive the more meetings they have, in some cases. Let's invent an editing deadline, since we have a lot of podcast production. You have a deadline and an editor who's a little behind. Then you might think: I want more meetings to say we need to hurry up. How do we push to make it go faster? But perhaps the insight instead is: I need fewer meetings and to leave this person alone, because it takes quite a long time to get into and work on a task. I don't remember what it's called, but in psychology, there's something about… [00:09:19] …even if I have a meeting at ten and start editing at eight, my brain will think: there's no point really getting into it. I might not consciously think that, but I procrastinate or don't do the task properly. Subconsciously, the brain thinks: I'm going to a meeting soon; I need to prepare. Then you're no longer immersed in the task, which therefore takes longer to do. The more meetings you have, the more you fall behind. It goes a little faster. [00:09:53] Good observation. Another thing is that the data has shown people are more effective and creative in the morning than in the afternoon. [00:10:05] By two or three, you've had a dip and start planning what needs doing at home. You're less creative, less keen on new tasks or ideas and just want to finish things. [00:10:22] When should you have meetings? Probably after lunch. But what do most companies do? They book before lunch, usually in the mornings. Preferably a morning meeting, preferably at ten and preferably at eleven. Partly, you get the problem you mention: I procrastinate and might not even have time to get into it, because I know the task takes much longer. I'm going into a meeting soon anyway. [00:10:54] So I put it off until after lunch and do other tasks to fill the time, because I want to feel I'm doing something. Then after lunch, you're not as creative, and the task takes much longer than it should. If you as a company founder can schedule meetings, especially recurring ones, do it as infrequently as possible and after lunch. At Porobic Group, we used to have a weekly meeting where I gave an hour's briefing on where we stood financially, how partners were doing, news, welcomed new team members and mentioned if someone had left, so everyone got an update. [00:11:37] Then it became biweekly. Before the summer, I sat thinking: is it really necessary every other week, or is a monthly meeting enough? I went through use cases and thought a monthly meeting was probably enough. But why should I update the rest of the team, who just listen for an hour? Sometimes perhaps a status update in the channel every other week is enough, and a monthly meeting where I actually present news. A bit like how I handle it in podcast format, and many on the team listen anyway. [00:12:15] Just as you say, when you want to grow, you can look at what can be stripped away. We often think more staff are needed to handle things, when perhaps they're things we should stop doing. [00:12:33] Instead of hiring to solve it, perhaps we should stop, or have a plan for an agent to take over the repetitive work. Is that possible? [00:12:50] Should we stop, or should an AI agent do it? Companies do many tasks manually that an agent could do, with a human overseeing it. Then you cut the person's workload by 90 per cent. [00:13:11] A lot can be done. That's part of the conversations. But another problem founders constantly have is: now I've hired someone and have to do onboarding. How do you do it well so it doesn't become a workload down the road? We know onboarding is among the most important things for a new employee coming to work. Then perhaps you should plan so it's not in July, when half the team and you are on holiday. Nor let the person start during Black Week or in November, when everyone's completely busy and running at full speed. Perhaps straight after the summer, when school starts, back to… [00:14:07] …work. January can be good, unless you're on holiday then after working yourself to death in November–December. Plan the onboarding period. Reasonable. [00:14:22] And bear in mind there should be onboarding at all. I have a few questions: if a company bought your business and you were away for 90 days, what would it do at the beginning? [00:14:45] Say you got ill and ended up in a coma for 90 days. What would the company or fund buying it do then? [00:14:54] That's what I've worked on over the past few years. I got ill and was away for over 90 days. After that, I've tried to make sure all the companies I'm involved in can manage without me. [00:15:07] Every founder should think that way, because you never know what happens in life. It was completely unexpected that I'd get widespread, metastatic cancer out of nowhere when I was very young. [00:15:19] With that lesson behind me… It's hard to learn from other people's mistakes or illnesses; you think it'll never happen to me. Suddenly, you're standing there. You need to plan for it, however awful it is. If someone buys the company and you're unable to work for 90 days… [00:15:43] …what would catch fire first? Good question. The hope is that at the time of sale, you have a strong enough team… [00:15:57] …that can handle the day-to-day running and operations. What you add might be product development, creative quality, strategy or leadership, depending on the type of founder. Most founders I work with are very strong on product. Then perhaps the first thing to go is: the new product for the autumn launch won't happen this autumn; we're postponing it to Q1. Nothing bigger than that should happen. Then I like running founder stories, founder ads, where the founder is in front of the camera. It's genuine, works well and people relate. You're usually credible in front of the camera, however bad the ad turns out. [00:16:44] You won't get new ads like that. Should you recreate from the library that's been built, or build up new entrepreneurs within the company who don't do founder ads but employee-generated content? [00:17:06] Then perhaps several people in the company should already be identified, be in front of the camera and create content several times a month. Hard to start on the day someone is away. It's possible, but… [00:17:21] …difficult at the last minute. Those are two things I think are critical. A few questions to ask yourself are: which… [00:17:32] How do we get there? Exactly. Which decisions still require you? If you aren't there to make them, what happens, and how should they be handled instead? Suppose we haven't sold. When a new part-owner comes in, they want to help set the map, the future, vision, goals and budget. Until then, you have the main responsibility. [00:17:57] As a founder, probably majority owner and ultimately responsible CEO, you sit on many chairs and wear many hats. You are ultimately responsible for the company, both legally and commercially. Knowing that, do you dare let go of budget responsibility? Can you give the online budget to a growth manager or someone on the team, or should you be involved yourself? Highly individual. It depends on your knowledge, how good you are at forecasts and market trends and at analysing your own data. If you're very good at it, of course you should do it. If you're not the world's best, perhaps someone on the team is better than you at analysing the forecast. What do Google Trends and our Google… [00:18:53] …Search Console say? Does the brand have higher demand than a quarter ago or the same time last year? Comparing points in time and trend lines. Then perhaps that person should do it. [00:19:07] I also like the question: what would it take to let go? These decisions need to be made… [00:19:17] …what does it take for them to be made without me? We need to produce more marketing content. What's needed for that to happen without me? [00:19:29] A CEO, founder or leader needs to ask those questions continuously: how do I build an organisation that works at every stage, with or without me? Let's take a term: someone owns an area. You want to hire a senior person to own an area. What do you think about that? [00:19:59] Most people want that, but few get there. You interfere, which makes senior people in particular feel they don't fully own it. Then they don't fully take responsibility either… [00:20:17] …for what they do. That also affects the results, the creative quality and everything along the way. You need to train yourself first. It starts at the top with letting go, watching people make mistakes and allowing them to make their own mistakes. Not stepping in to correct them before they happen. Then there are two types. Disastrous mistakes with legal consequences, such as advertising that's completely against laws and regulations, or a purchase that's far too large and can destroy cash flow for ever or, in the worst case, bankrupt the company. [00:20:57] Or there are small mistakes: the copy for the Black Week ad is a little wrong, or the text in the email going out in September is a bit off. You know, that type. Let people do it. If they're wondering whether to send three or five campaign emails a week, let them test. You shouldn't step in and make the decision: no, we'll do three, or no, we'll do five. Are they considering another button colour or tagline on the site? As a founder, you shouldn't intervene in that sort of thing. Let those who own the area take responsibility. In other words: let the person responsible make all decisions within the area, except things that could bring the company down… [00:21:48] …or bankrupt it, or cause extreme legal difficulties. That makes me think of B.F. Skinner in behaviourism: take an abstract word and break it down into a behaviour. Someone says: owns marketing. Quite abstract. What does that mean? Exactly. Then you need to define that perhaps it means which decisions the person makes without asking. Good, a great thing to go through. Really good to have clear examples. [00:22:21] This happens: who makes the decision, who is responsible and how do we solve it? Other abstract words: ‘Good leader.’ What does the person do that you define as good leadership? [00:22:38] Or ‘takes responsibility’. What does that mean to you? Do you say something and keep your promise? Arrive on time? What does it mean? Or ‘has drive’, also very abstract. No observable behaviour. [00:23:02] Another example is: the team needs to become more self-sufficient. What should they do differently on Monday? How do you know when the team is self-sufficient? You have to break it down. It's like when I say Fedja is a nice guy. Okay, what defines a nice guy? I can't hire someone and say: ‘Fedja is nice, be nice too.’ It's too abstract. Now the examples are very broad, so the mistakes are easy to see. But sometimes we say something to a person and think we're being clear when in fact we're being abstract. [00:23:46] I agree. It's rooted in communication. Clear communication is the be-all and end-all in every relationship. Here, the leader has ultimate responsibility for clear expectations. [00:24:02] Make it concrete with clear examples: this is okay, this isn't. This is an example… Then there will always be grey areas and things that are hard to interpret. [00:24:16] That's fine. When recruiting, I usually say I'd rather give a speeding ticket than a parking ticket. What does that mean? Make mistakes. If you put your foot on the accelerator and make a mistake, that's okay in my book. I won't get angry. But if you're standing still and not testing at all… [00:24:40] …mistake or not, then you've become very comfortable. That's wrong in my book and gets a parking ticket, because it's been standing still too long. Everything that doesn't develop declines. [00:24:53] Everything around you is developing. If you aren't, then by definition it's a kind of decline. If I were still travelling by horse and carriage, the world would have developed around me. [00:25:09] Exactly. Everything starts with you as a leader. Hard to hear, but necessary to understand: clear communication and expectations. Back to the fundamentals, what's important? [00:25:24] Give clear examples and lead the way you want the company to lead teams and itself. If you go into details, are fussy about words and change things, you become like a parachute. [00:25:49] You don't want employees constantly asking permission: is this okay? Then you'll always be the bottleneck. Believe me, sooner or later you'll have a thousand things in the backlog and nothing done. As a leader, you want to be able to take three steps back and think ten ahead. What happens next quarter? What did the previous one look like? What do we learn? How do we develop the next two, three, four quarters? That's what you want to think about. Are we following the company's vision? The mission, are we faithful to our core promise, or not because we've compromised on two or three things? [00:26:32] You don't have time for those questions if you're correcting copy, writing emails, going into the ad library, fixing labels, checking whether someone ordered labels and looking at the bottles. Your actual duties don't get the time they should. [00:26:54] Another example around responsibility: you hire a senior person who's going to take responsibility. Let's say it's a woman. [00:27:03] Okay. Then I'd break it down: what does that mean? In this example, it means the person identifies problems herself. Yes. She proposes a solution, makes decisions within her mandate, follows up to make sure the problem was actually solved, and raises the issue when she doesn't have authority to solve it. That's an example of how the person can take responsibility. Responsibility goes from something vague to something observable. Then you can also look at which step the person falls down on. Perhaps not all of them, but one. Okay, she doesn't propose solutions, but comes to you. When I read about Elon Musk, they'd arranged it so that when you come to him, you can't just… [00:27:51] …say you have a problem and throw it at him. You have to come and say: I've thought through different scenarios. Here are the proposed solutions. I've chosen this solution for this reason. You come with alternatives instead of problems. Once you've broken ‘she takes a lot of responsibility’ down into steps, you see where help is needed. For example, proposing a solution. Okay, that's something you can work on. If you just say ‘You need to take more responsibility’, the person thinks: how do I do that? [00:28:25] Say instead: when you identify problems, you need to get better at bringing proposed solutions, not just throwing the problems at me. Then we can discuss the solutions together. [00:28:36] I agree. Lead by example; do it yourself as a leader. Identify a problem, bring suggestions, discuss them in the team, then make a joint decision and move on. [00:28:53] What must the founder let go of at ten, thirty and a hundred million in revenue? Difficult. If we turn it around, what must the founder do at ten, twenty, thirty, forty and up to a hundred? Definitely set the vision and mission, where we're heading, and be involved in the product roadmap, what will be rolled out. Perhaps not create the products with your own hands, but have the direction. [00:29:29] Definitely set budgets and three- and five-year plans, what we're working on in the short and long term. Then be involved in recruitment processes even up to a hundred million. Everything starts with recruitment. If you bring in the wrong people and build the wrong culture from the start, it seeps down through the whole growing organisation. Very hard to fix, costly mistakes you don't want to make. What should be delegated? Around ten million, perhaps you're hiring your first or second employee. [00:30:11] Then think: what am I good at, and what do I need to complement? If I'm a product person, good at product development, perhaps I need someone who gets the product onto the market, good at performance, brand or whatever I'm missing or want to get better at. [00:30:38] You need a partner, preferably a senior person. A junior in a role you haven't mastered yourself will struggle to come in and be… [00:30:56] …responsible for the area. The person is junior and hasn't done it for many years, so can't lead your vision in the channel or area they've been given. [00:31:15] When recruiting in, for example, marketing, define the key metrics the person will be measured on. You can also ask how the person measures success. [00:31:31] Then you need to look at how they measure success, how you measure it yourself and whether they can do what you want. Let's take an example. When we've tried to get help with social media, people have said they've made videos. We look and see: perhaps you've helped someone grow on YouTube, where views matter and there are no sales at all. They can get views, but is it in the area you want, purchases and sales? Are those the metrics you're looking at? Which ones even matter? So you don't just say we need views. Why? Try to break it down. [00:32:16] Set the target picture already during recruitment. Then during onboarding, people know what's required within 90 or 120 days for the hire to count as successful. [00:32:30] Usually, you have a six-month probationary period, and hopefully you use that window. After that, it gets much harder. You have to set a clear picture: this is where we want to go, and this is what we see as a successful hire after three to six months. Then we measure these KPIs. The person has to help develop them to be able to take responsibility for them. It's harder to be given responsibility for KPIs and metrics that someone else has decided entirely, where you have no influence yourself. [00:33:09] An example: the company has grown to ten or thirty million, and you're the e-commerce manager. You're measured mainly on site conversion, average value and repeat customers. At the same time, the company has decided to double traffic to increase sales substantially. If you double new-customer traffic, by definition you get a lower proportion of returning customers. [00:33:41] It becomes harder to maintain the conversion rate, because existing customers are easier to convert than new ones. The KPIs become harder to reach. Both the person setting the requirements and the recipient need to see whether the goals are realistic. [00:34:05] A common mistake in growth is having high conversion because you're not advertising; existing customers simply refer others. Then conversion can be sky-high… [00:34:24] …and you think: I want to keep that high conversion. The optimisation itself becomes a bottleneck. Instead, we can think about spending 10,000 on marketing and compare it with increasing to 100,000, one million or ten million a month. Then we get less per krona when we spend more money. You get stuck optimising something instead of sometimes accepting that it becomes less. Let's take the example that I earn ten kronor per product sold… [00:34:59] …and, with a little advertising, sell ten a month. Then I earn a hundred kronor. I'd rather have one krona per product but sell 100,000 a month, because then more money comes into the account in the end. [00:35:17] You can get stuck in too much optimisation. Exactly, a simple calculation: volume should lead to more money. [00:35:32] Back to basics. We talked about that a few episodes ago. Important to take control of your P&L. [00:35:44] If you as a founder can't set up a P&L with GM1, GM2 and GM3 and run the numbers, you need external help. It's easy to miscalculate. [00:35:55] I'm thinking about one challenge when recruiting at the beginning: you hire for a role in something that isn't your strength. That's difficult. There are two ways, and one is to learn the area yourself. Facebook advertising is an example I discuss with many founders. Because I'm good at Meta, performance marketing and growth marketing, many come to me and say they have a few problems. I had lunch with a guy who scaled his brand very quickly, from about four to 36 million, selling watch accessories. [00:36:40] This year, they've had an exceptional spike, because a big watch brand made a significant drop. They're heading towards perhaps over 100–120 million already this year. He says: ‘One of our biggest mistakes was that I hired a senior marketer whom I thought was senior, put the person on the Meta account, and then the advertising plummeted. We went from an average ROAS of three to four times to 1.8.’ [00:37:13] It's common. Someone with no experience of your brand has to get to grips with it, regardless of seniority. It may have been a bad hire from the start. Perhaps the person was very good at Meta for telecom companies, other advertising or a strong brand where the brand and repeat customers drove sales. Meta advertising was more of an add-on. [00:37:43] If you work at Telia or Nike, there's a group of people, but that doesn't mean that particular person's work drove the business. [00:37:56] Exactly. This founder got into Meta to some extent and worked hands-on for a while, because it accounted for such a large share of online sales. If you get into the problem yourself and solve it with AI, such as ChatGPT, it becomes easier to hire afterwards. Then the founder knows: this is what I want to recruit for. These are the KPIs I'll measure. This is how I want the company run. Then you can find someone smarter than you and buy a few years. It's a practical example I think is good. In e-commerce, there aren't that many areas that you… [00:38:40] …need to become at least a little hands-on in. You'd probably struggle to find an area where I have no experience at all. Even though I say I'm not an expert in supply and logistics. No, I'm not, because lots of people are much better. But I can still have a conversation with a supply or logistics manager at a larger trading company, roughly know the challenges and which KPIs should be set for the best possible overall e-commerce experience. That's the basic point: if you as a founder only love and have looked at product development, and believe everything around it can be complemented with external… [00:39:31] …consultants or employees, you haven't optimised for overall success as you would have if you'd got to grips with it yourself and then hired. Okay, really, it helps to have defined what's to be done so it isn't abstract. Let's take… [00:39:50] …the word delegate. Someone thinks it means giving a task to someone else, but that's abstract. If we make it concrete and observable, it means someone gets a clear result to achieve, authority for certain decisions, resources to solve the task, responsibility for follow-up and clear boundaries for when the issue should be raised. [00:40:17] You haven't fully delegated if the person does the work but you still have to decide how, approve decisions, identify problems and follow up on details. If we break delegation down, we can more easily find where it's falling down, instead of one lump: ‘Delegation isn't working.’ [00:40:42] ‘People aren't doing what I think they should.’ Again, when you delegate, you can't be the parachute that comes in and tinkers… [00:40:56] …because then the person always sees a short distance to fall. If it's high, you've made the decision to delegate, and the person responsible has done something that turns out wrong, they need to be able to own the responsibility: I made a mistake. I'll do better next time I do a similar task. But if the CEO, boss or manager has come in and tinkered… [00:41:26] …and always rescued things at the last second, I let go of some responsibility. I become less proactive, because whatever I do, someone comes in and fiddles with it at the end anyway. Then I'm not really the one owning it. [00:41:46] Get better at letting people make their own mistakes, even when you see one. I was extraordinarily clear about that when I started recruiting for Porobic Group: I want self-sufficient people who want to do it and, above all, enjoy it. You're allowed to make your own mistakes. One of our best employees came straight from City Gross after more than ten years there. The person comes in, learns a lot, shadows another person and learns the tasks, but gets to make their own mistakes. Of course I can see, having worked with this for ten years while the other person worked at City Gross for ten: this will be a mistake. This probably isn't… [00:42:36] …the best. You can never know, because nine times out of ten you're right, but the tenth you might be wrong. The ad you thought beforehand was awful might do really well. You can know a lot, or think you know, but you don't always have the answer. You might be right nine out of ten times. But if you step in and tinker and change everything, you interfere. The person's distance to fall becomes shorter, and they'll never really learn for themselves or become fully self-sufficient. With a long way to fall, they learn faster. [00:43:17] …take responsibility and develop faster. Looking at learning, one thing that makes it faster is perceived frustration: ‘Shit, I can't do this.’ Then the brain opens up. I wonder whether it has something to do with conserving energy or something like that. [00:43:39] Perceived frustration, what do you mean? Say you're going to do a task and feel you can't and are bad at it. That increases the likelihood you'll open yourself to learning. [00:43:54] Oh, I thought the opposite. If you're frustrated because you can't do something, perhaps instead you learn that you can't and don't want to learn. But it's also a scale, not black or white. It probably depends on where you are on the scale in this case. [00:44:13] True story. Let's take ‘self-sufficient’. Someone thinks it means the person doesn't need help. [00:44:22] But again, very abstract. ‘I want to hire someone who doesn't need help.’ How do I do that? [00:44:30] If we break it down, a self-sufficient person knows what result is expected, sees when something deviates, takes initiative without being told, makes decisions within their mandate and tries to solve problems before escalating. They come with suggestions when help is needed and follow up to see that the decision gave the desired result. The difference is that the person doesn't come with: ‘It isn't working, what do I do?’ but: ‘It isn't working. I see three solutions and recommend this one because…’ [00:45:09] Okay. Then you've defined the word self-sufficient, which appears in almost half of recruitment ads and which I think is in most job descriptions. In a workplace, some self-starting drive is expected. [00:45:28] To sum up: self-sufficient means the person gets from problem to result without someone else driving the process. I like that, a good summary. [00:45:39] Shall we wrap up the segment? We could talk endlessly about working yourself out of a job and give company-building tips. If you have more questions about organisation and entrepreneurship, send a DM. We'll definitely take it up, perhaps in December or January, and summarise questions. Q&A is always fun, and we know those episodes do well. [00:46:10] We have a new segment in this week's… Fredrik observed that you loved the episode where we broke down an ad library and looked at Alba Health's ads. Now we thought we'd have a recurring segment almost every week, where instead of lots of ads, we look at the ad of the week. [00:46:40] What's our ad of the week this week, Fredrik? Actually, it was you who thought: we know Björn and the team at C'est Normal, let's take them. Now we're in Facebook Ad Library, or Meta if you want to call it that. I have four ads in thumbnail view. Which do you want to choose? Why are we choosing C'est Normal? I've been bombarded with their ads lately, at least before the summer. I see a strong, clear pattern over the last 12–18 months. They've gone from quite static images and boring advertising to more moving, personal, innovative, humorous and educational material. Even though it's only about, quote unquote… [00:47:31] …apparel, clothes: jeans, shoes, T-shirts, shorts and swimwear. Basic apparel, done with finesse. The ad account stands out compared with others in the category. I don't have results in black and white; I haven't got figures from Björn or anyone at C'est Normal. But I can almost say with my hand on my heart that it's going like a train and they've probably doubled, if not tripled, revenue in 18–24 months and continue to grow explosively. I did get a pitch deck two years ago and knew they were turning over around 30–40 million. [00:48:22] I think they're on their way to breaking a hundred, if they haven't already. Perhaps you have more insight. If you do, you'll have to keep it to yourself. Let's choose an ad. [00:48:32] I don't know how much I'm allowed to say. No, keep it to yourself. Let's take the image ad up here… [00:48:41] …on the left. Top right, sorry. We're in the Library, have selected active ads and sorted by recent, but scrolled to the bottom to see which have run longest. [00:48:57] Good explanation. Why do we want to see those? If an ad has run for a day, we most likely have no idea how it's performing… [00:49:07] …whether it's good or bad. Here, the ad has been running since 22 May 2026. The platform is Instagram, but for some reason not Facebook. [00:49:24] We click ‘See more details’. Here we see it's targeting men aged 25–55 and has a reach of 28,000 in the EU. Quite low. Very low, but it could be wrong. It may have been reset. In all likelihood, it's reached many more. [00:49:47] Under EU, I see the location is only Sweden and it's targeting men. They probably sell a lot here, likely their main market and where they come from. Let's try the ad. [00:50:01] Ages 25–34 have the largest share of views. Let's go. For those watching, it's the first time we're seeing the ad ourselves. It was just images flashing. [00:50:14] Images flashing to music. A simple ad highlighting some sort of affinity: you recognise yourself in, or aspire to, the lifestyle ahead of summer. Published on 22 May and still running. A lifestyle ad with clothes in different images flashing quickly. If you want to see one of the images… [00:50:43] …you have to pause the video. Good, because when you pause, you indicate there's something you want to look at. [00:50:51] When it moves quickly, people tend to want to see and pause, or watch the video several times. One of the strongest metrics for whether an ad is doing well is when people have watched the same thing on repeat two, three or four times. Here, perhaps you watch ten times because it goes so quickly. [00:51:14] There's a lot going for it. Is it hard to produce? Probably not. The logo is in the middle of the screen. What do you think? [00:51:25] Very ad-like. Both the sound and… General words! Exactly, general words. But unfortunately, it comes across as ad-like. The ad of the week is very ad-like. C'est Normal starts the copy with… [00:51:41] ‘At C'est Normal, we create pieces that move with you. Refined, flexible and quietly essential.’ Catastrophically bad copy. The only thing you're missing… A call to action, USPs, anything. The starting point is ‘we’. [00:51:58] Exactly, the perspective should always be the customer's. Those long dashes ChatGPT writes… It feels like ChatGPT text. What's in it for me? As a customer, I don't care what you at C'est Normal think about creating ‘pieces that move with me’. I care… [00:52:19] What's in it for me? An ad with high potential for improvement. What do we give it? We need to rate it first. Oh God, what's our scale? [00:52:34] Zero to ten. Another thing before I answer: where is it in their sales funnel? Is it the first thing people see, and do they get the next video afterwards? It's hard to judge from that. [00:52:54] Hard for me too. It could be placed at both the top and bottom of the funnel. A broad ad across a broad spectrum. Across the funnel. [00:53:05] Four, then. Good, Fredrik, we're in sync. I was thinking four too. It's positive that it's fast and has nice pictures. A lot suggests people would want to pause and watch again. [00:53:21] But all the selling and aspirational aspects disappear a little. You don't really see what they're selling or pushing. There's a strong ‘we’ feeling. We should take one with Warner in front of the camera as a counterweight, or… Take this one… [00:53:43] …the founder. What's his name, Benji? Here we have Ben. Take that one. Exactly the same target audience, 21 May, roughly the same date, similar audience and reach. A good comparison. We press play. [00:54:04] ‘We're in the [unclear in the Swedish source: fence], shooting the new overshirts, also some linen stuff and the brand-new shorts. But before that, I want to tell you about the sneakers. This week is Sneakers Week, so 25% off all of our sneakers, and we have them in a lot of different colors. First of all, my favorite one, this beautiful cream. We also have cream and green, my second favorite. We have five colors in total.’ [00:54:27] ‘Also this beautiful white for the summer. Get yours right now on cestnormal.com, and see you later for the rest of the collection.’ Okay, what do we think, Fredrik? You start. It doesn't feel like an ad. Especially people who like and follow Benjamin on social media might stop in the feed when they see him and the car he often shows, an old Mustang. He's standing there talking as if it could be about anything, and suddenly it turns out to be the shoes he's talking about. [00:55:00] I was also a little surprised it was the shoes. I agree. There's a pattern interrupt: you want to see the setting, and the person… [00:55:12] …feels likeable when he starts talking. Fluent and easy to follow. However, there are lots of small improvements. No logo here, so it feels nowhere near as ad-like. [00:55:29] More like a post in the feed. However, I don't like the hook. Start by selling what you're selling, so it's clear. There were overshirts, then T-shirts, then shoes flying in. A funny twist with a shoe in different colours. [00:55:50] The twist raises the rating. But overall, he's standing a bit far from the camera and the sound is rough. You can't hear very well; it isn't in your face. [00:56:05] Don't you think… It sounds like he has a lav microphone. Surely he doesn't sound far from the camera? I think he's standing quite far away. Perhaps he has a lav mic, but outdoors the sound isn't quite as crisp as a good voiceover. He doesn't feel prepared for what he's going to say either. You see him step out of the car, from the back door, and at the end he forgets something. Instead of doing another take, it's: ‘Yes, that's right, we also have this.’ It's a campaign ad. We know campaigns such as Sneakers Week, 25 per cent off sneakers, tend to work better in statics than specifically… [00:56:44] …video. This particular type of video gets a few too many negatives. But overall, what do we give it on a scale of ten? This one's harder. I've been looking through the library, and they often step out of a car, assemble something or do something other than what they want to show. I know another video where he's assembling a picnic table and suddenly talks about his product. [00:57:22] I like that. There's a point and a pattern interrupt, especially with a setting that makes people feel: I want to be there too. [00:57:35] Then is it positive or negative not to be fully zoomed in? Here, I think negative, because he starts by selling a garment. The hook is ‘Look at my overshirt’. [00:57:49] Let's play it again. ‘We're in the [unclear in the Swedish source: sal fence], shooting the new overshirts, also some linen stuff and the brand-new shorts. But before that, I want to tell you…’ As you can see, he's advertising several different things. [00:58:01] It gets confusing. ‘Before that’, but then he never gets to ‘that’. It may be the only ad someone gets in their feed. Okay, you were going to talk about your overshirt. [00:58:13] Do you think that's the only thing they talk about, or…? Then everything about sneakers came, so I don't think the ad was prepared, but more: Benjamin… [00:58:20] …we're going to talk sneakers. You have no script, but you're standing in front of the cool car and we're filming from two metres away. Shoot. Then they record. [00:58:31] A little hurriedly on the way to a shoot, and he talks the way he usually does: we're on our way to a shoot, but before that… As if the viewer has seen lots of other things before or knows the brand well. Then perhaps it works better. But many are being exposed to it for the first time ever. [00:58:51] It's running today, several months later, when summer is over. I don't know what I think. Or I do, but want to hear you first. The challenge for me is that they're working in several steps. This probably isn't the only ad someone is exposed to… [00:59:12] …and I don't know where… You talked about the Facebook algorithm knowing more about when to introduce what to the person. Perhaps they've already seen two videos or still images. [00:59:29] Probably. I think it comes further down, more clearly bottom of funnel. Does its place in the funnel matter? Yes, but that doesn't make the ad itself better. The creative itself is quite bad. [00:59:48] I'll give it a six, then. A six? I'd have given it lower, around four, the same as the previous one. It has a place in the funnel, but roughly the same. Let's take one last one. It was going to be the ad of the week, but it's becoming the week's third, three from C'est Normal. [01:00:14] We have to find one that gets more than four or six out of ten. I hope this one's better. Let's take one of their latest, or a later one in the library. [01:00:28] Read the copy before we press play. ‘Last summer, it sold out quicker than we imagined. So we brought it back sharper, lighter, better than before. Updated fits, refined details, fresh seasonal colors. The Holiday Linen Collection now includes three warm-weather staples: the [unclear in the Swedish source: sort shirt], linen trousers and linen shorts.’ What do we think? [01:00:56] They're selling three things at once, right? Three. It's a collection ad for the whole Linen Collection. Click the ad copy. Is there more? [01:01:12] Yes. ‘Designed for slow mornings, long lunches, late dinners and everything in between.’ Everything for everyone. ‘Discover the new collection now.’ A clear call to action. What I think of it: ‘Last summer, it sold out quicker than we imagined, so we brought it back.’ [01:01:31] Now better because we've listened to feedback. Lighter, better fabrics, sharper and an updated fit. We create a fear of missing out: it sold out last summer and is back better than ever. A bit of that iPhone feeling, where each new one is the best ever even though they've updated very little… [01:02:00] …almost imperceptible differences. Barely noticeable, but it's presented as a new, innovative product. They've succeeded at that for nearly twenty years. A bit of that style here. Is that wrong? No, bloody good, I think. [01:02:16] Honestly, it's much better copy than the others, with a clear call to action at the end. I miss the links, but otherwise everything in the copy is better. Longer and more useful, so you'll read. We know that when you read, you stay on the ad longer. People who are actually interested and read stay a number of seconds longer on average. That gives a higher average view, indicating a better ad, which in turn gives a better CPM cost in the Meta account. [01:02:50] For anyone who doesn't know: CPM is the cost per thousand impressions. Cost per mille, right? Yes, mille means a thousand, not a million. I'm still thinking about them writing ‘we’. What do you think? [01:03:06] ‘Last summer, it sold out… we brought it.’ Still us doing things, but now the focus is on you anyway. [01:03:15] Much less on us and what we do and want. More that it's designed for you based on feedback from the community. It doesn't say that directly in the copy, but that's the underlying meaning. Let's press play. [01:03:34] A common mistake I want to mention: in my project for writing copy, I hound ChatGPT and Claude because they write ‘we’. My guess is they've been trained on what's been written on the internet. [01:03:51] Many write from the first-person perspective: I've done this. On the company's site, you want to tell your story. The focus isn't the customer, but our story and history. [01:04:09] Instead of the customer benefit and what the customer gets. Exactly. The customer should be the focus in ads, the story, the product page and everywhere. StoryBrand by Donald Miller, incredibly good. Interesting to build the customer up as the hero. [01:04:25] I like his new 2.0 too. He's done an updated version. Let's press play. ‘It is hot. Except when you're wearing a pair of linen sets. These are made from 100% premium linen, which is very breathable and also comfortable. We also added zipper pockets so you never lose your stuff, and it's available right now in many different colors and different fits on cestnormal.com.’ [01:04:54] I love this. ‘It is hot.’ A much better hook. For one thing, you can relate to the heat, because it's been a warm summer. It ran in August, very right on time. Good timing. It was extremely hot on the August days I was in Sweden. If you were abroad, perhaps it was even hotter. Right? A good hook: ‘It is hot, except when you're wearing a pair of C'est Normal linen pants.’ I'm wearing jeans; it was hot. I relate and think I should have had their linen trousers. I'm looking for linen pants. Am I looking for that, or trousers in general? Breathable, lightweight. Then he goes into the USPs. [01:05:49] He starts with a kind of pattern interrupt to make you stop: ‘It is hot.’ Yes, I recognise that and want to know more. Then: except when you have our trousers, because they're lighter, better, breathable and a natural material. [01:06:11] A well-structured ad with a clear call to action at the end: go to C'est Normal's site to learn more. It builds AIDA better, with awareness and interest. Then desire when you zoom in and see, as he touches the trousers, how comfortable they feel, honestly. Then you get excited about ordering… [01:06:40] …or at least learning more. Much better. What do you think? I like it too. Elaborate, what do you like? I'm thinking about its place in the sales funnel. It feels closer to leading to a purchase, more concrete about the product and more directly towards a purchase… [01:07:06] …compared with… When we scrolled through the ad library, they were doing lots of other tasks at the same time that made you stop. [01:07:18] Here, there was more focus on the product. I don't know what's bad or good; I'm always in favour of measuring. [01:07:27] Everything has to be measured. The only odd thing is Linen Collection, while the focus is on the trousers. If the link leads to the trousers, that's fine. If it leads to a collection… We can test that. Press ‘Shop’. [01:07:45] It says ‘Holiday Linen Collection’. Press ‘Shop now’. Then I think it's wrong… But it leads to linen pants. It's a little confusing and misleading to have a collection when you talk about and lead to the trousers. Still, better to do that than lead to a collection page with three products, which would have been more difficult and further from purchase. This is better. [01:08:13] They have upselling below. But that's not enough. Upselling what? Not what he's shown and talked about, the Linen Collection. You have a T-shirt and a pair of shoes. [01:08:25] Then you'd have preferred a complete focus? Same as when he sold the shoe, started with another product and then switched… [01:08:35] Yes, that was confusing. This one gets a little confusing in the copy, but not in the ad. Perhaps most important, because you get it in a Story, Reel or feed. There, it'll work better. The landing page matches what you saw in the ad, not the copy. But the copy is probably ChatGPT-generated, and that's their big mistake. They don't have a good prompt… [01:09:03] …and unfortunately haven't quality-checked the material they publish. But overall, a good ad, a better pattern interrupt and a good hook. I like that things happen in the video, but there are improvements. What would you improve? Perhaps a little more backstory about it in the text: this is what we've developed, and why. The text doesn't really fit with the video today. [01:09:35] You mean why they developed the trousers, why they have lighter fabric? He mentions some USPs, but not what's in the text. These are… [01:09:46] Is it good or bad that the text differs from what he says? Bad, I think. Better to reinforce the message in the text than the reverse. Today, the text is generated from… [01:09:58] Couldn't it be that they read and watch and think it's the same thing? Yes, but that isn't bad. The question is whether it reinforces it. I think it's good to reinforce the message being shown. A URL is missing, a slightly longer video with backstory wouldn't have hurt, and a little more could happen. Sure, you zoom slowly… [01:10:25] …but nothing else happens. Not a huge amount of B-roll, which perhaps isn't needed. But a little more happening wouldn't have hurt. What rating do you give it? [01:10:37] A strong seven. There's a place for it in the account. It probably performs okay, because you do feel a little tempted. An aspirational ad in a warm country where the trousers fit the person well… [01:10:58] …and you get quite a lot beyond them just being ordinary linen trousers. A strong seven. Funny you say aspirational. When he talks about the heat and how cool they are, I'm thinking more feature, that the fabric affects the heat. [01:11:24] One doesn't exclude the other. Both can exist in the same ad. Here, both are there, perhaps not the most aspirational ever. Not David Beckham in a nice car… [01:11:41] …whom you might look up to. But in this case, I'm thinking about something I listened to earlier about how people influence you. They had a football stadium with lots of different people: celebrities, TikTok personalities, YouTubers, podcasters and such. Then they measured how popular people were by the amount of applause they got. [01:12:15] The so-called David Beckham celebrities, perhaps not him specifically because he's huge, but A- and B-list celebrities, got the least applause… [01:12:30] Really? Yes, people couldn't relate as much. Livestreamers got the most, because they stream almost every day. People ask questions and get answers. Aspirational doesn't have to mean an A- or B-list celebrity today. Interesting observation. [01:12:52] Thanks for that; I'll look it up too. With that said, we'll finish this week's segment. It was going to be the ad of the week, now three. Hope you're still here listening. [01:13:07] We'll have to split it up next time. If we find ads, we'll spread them out. From the next episode of Noll till 100, the ad of the week will be better prepared. Then we'll take one you listeners send in… [01:13:27] …or one we really think is good, and make an assessment, rate it and break down why it's good, as we've done so far. Then some kind of ranking at the end of the month. [01:13:48] And at the end of the year, we'll rank every ad we've had. Will you remember them all then? A hundred per cent, this is my home turf. [01:14:00] Hope you like the segment. If you don't, write and we'll scrap it. Soap it or scrap it? We'll scrap it if it doesn't add value to Noll till 100. I promise we'll do that, right, Fredrik? [01:14:18] Absolutely. Brilliant. Thank you so much, once again, for listening. If you've got something out of it, help us: go to YouTube, like and subscribe. Go to Spotify and give a rating… [01:14:37] …for the podcast. We're at about a hundred reviews now and want a little over a hundred. Pass it on to a colleague or someone who would benefit from it. See you next week. Thanks for the episode. [01:14:58] Thank you so much. Bye! Yeah.