Beyond Best Practices: 3 Unconventional Strategies That Drive Results

Hey everyone,

Welcome back for another bite to chew on.

Today's newsletter is a bit different. Instead of our usual deep dive, you're getting THREE founder perspectives in one email. 

We figured, why limit ourselves to just one topic when we could share insights across multiple areas that might be impacting your business right now?

Let's get right into it.

On the Menu:

• Ron: How To Be a Better Leader: Asking the Right Questions 

• Ash: CRO Magic: Reframing Your Offer

• Ankit: The Future of Influencer Marketing: Loyalty Over Reach

Forget chasing one mega-influencer with a million followers. The real ROI lives in building an army of micro-creators who genuinely love your brand.

At Obvi, we’ve built an owned community of authentic voices that consistently drive awareness and sales.

Naturally, this isn’t easy. We struggled to scale our efforts for a long time because we were working in spreadsheets and emails. It made managing dozens of creator relationships practically impossible. 

Two years ago we tried SARAL and haven’t looked back → 🚀 

Instead of one polished celebrity post, we get dozens of authentic stories reaching different audiences. That’s why organic creator content has become our key awareness lever.

And because of SARAL, all of the relationships are easily managed, and all of the campaigns are clearly tracked. 

Get a demo to see if SARAL can help build your creator community. Mention Chew On This and they’ll even give you a free trial so you can try before you buy 💪

Asking the Right Questions ⁉️

Ron's Take - 3 mindtraps to avoid ❌ ❌ ❌

If you’re a leader in this game, you spend a lot of time putting out fires.

No matter how good your team, how solid your vision, or how awesome your product, there’s always another problem looking for a solution. 

I recently realized the most successful operators I know aren't necessarily the ones with all the answers. They're the ones asking better questions.

Sounds like a meaningless distinction, but…it’s surprisingly easy to sprint in the wrong direction.

Just because you failed to interrogate your starting assumptions. 

After years of building Obvi and mentoring other brands, I've seen 3 thought traps that afflict even the smartest founders:

The Metrics Mirage → 📊 

This one is seductive. Obsessing over improving specific KPIs without considering the bigger picture. 

There are a lot of numbers and metrics to worry about in eCom. And when you’re working in a fog of spreadsheets, it’s easy to forget that a lot of them are just proxies for business impact and not an end in themselves. 

It’s really important to understand what a metric actually represents and how it ladders up to your ultimate goal. I can’t count how many brands I’ve seen with killer BI dashboards and empty bank accounts. 

The "Best Practices" Blindfold → 🕶️

When you’re not sure about something, the simplest approach is to do what everyone else is doing. Even if it does not apply to your company. 

A founder in my network recently spent six figures on a website redesign following all the current "best practices"—only to see performance decline.

Best practices are like rules of thumb. They kind of work in general circumstances, some of the time. But they aren’t universal. It’s good to understand how your brand is the exception to the rule. 

The Expertise Echo Chamber → 🥼

We stick to what we know and avoid what we don't. It’s human nature. Marketing founders don’t get operations. Product experts resist sales strategies. 

We don’t know what we don’t know. And those blindspots can prevent us from asking the right questions. 

The breakthrough comes when you shift from "How do we solve this problem?" to "Are we solving the right problem?"

Next time you're struggling with a business challenge, pause and ask yourself: 

❌ Are you measuring what truly matters? 

❌ Are you blindly following industry norms? 

❌ Does your comfort zone create tunnel vision?

Remember—working harder on the wrong problems won't build a better business.

CRO Magic: Reframing Your Offer for Better Conversions 🖼️

Ash's Take - You don’t always need a developer for killer CRO

Want to improve your conversion rate without redesigning your entire website or coding in custom features? Let's talk about something you can test today: reframing your offer.

Pro tip → The way you present your offer matters more than the actual discount amount.

We discovered this when testing different discount structures. 

Our original structure was simple:

• 1 month: 20% off ($39.99)

• 3 months: 42% off

• 6 months: 57% off

Pretty standard, right? But what if we reframed the base offer to increase the perceived value? 

So we tested Buy One Get One (BOGO) against the standard discount. 

Let's break down the math:

• Original offer: $49.99 product at 20% off = $39.99 ($10 discount)

• BOGO offer: $49.99 + free product  ($49.99 value)

Here's the trick—with product COGS at $4, the BOGO actually had slightly better margins than the straight 20% discount. 

But the perceived value? Dramatically different.

Customers saw the BOGO as getting $99.98 worth of product for $49.99—a perceived 50% off, more than double our original 20% discount.

Slightly better profit, a significantly higher conversion rate, and customers felt like they were getting a much better deal.

All without complex development or code tweaks. 

Sometimes the best CRO isn't about changing your site design or copy—it's about rethinking how you frame your offers (and knowing the math behind them).

BTW - If you’re looking for more killer CRO tips, I’ll be be part of a free panel discussion on Thursday. (Short notice, I know.)  

The event is called The Singularity and it’s featuring a whole bunch of major brands and marketers like Ridge, Simple Modern, and Portland Leather (look at that list!)

The format is simple - no scripts, no presentations. Just 5 mins per speaker to drop key tactics that have helped scale some of the best companies in DTC. 

The event is Feb 27 at 11am PT. 

Grab your free seat here. 

The Future of Influencer Marketing: Loyalty Over Reach 💕

Ankit's Take - Learning a lesson from Wanelda

We just ran an experiment that completely changed how we think about influencer partnerships.

Before we get into it, I want to introduce you to Wanelda. 

You've never heard of her because she isn't a huge influencer with tons and tons of followers. We only found her because she was mentioning Obvi organically.

Wanelda posts brutally honest, unfiltered content about her health and fitness journey. No perfect angles, no staged photos—just raw authenticity. 

And she absolutely kills it for us. 

So we decided to run this experiment with her. Instead of just sending her our standard products, we created an exclusive Blood Orange pre-workout formula specifically for her audience (She chose the flavor). 

Custom label, her signature, even her caricature on the bottle.

That’s her LP above ⬆️

We cautiously ordered just 500 units to test the concept. They sold out in days.

This taught us something powerful about where influencer marketing is headed:

→ Trust converts better than reach ✅

→ Co-creation outperforms standard promotion 🙏🏽

→ Exclusivity creates true urgency 😍

→ Small batch tests reduce inventory risk 😎

In 2025, as algorithms shift and ad costs rise, the most valuable marketing asset won't be impressions or follower counts—it will be genuine trust and connection. 

Building partnerships with creators whose audiences would walk through fire for them creates a connection to your brand that massive reach simply can't match. Then doubling down on that relationship with custom products, tailored UX, and dedicated drops can drive real excitement, momentum, and revenue. 

🚨 Reminder to Try SARAL if you’re looking to up your influencer game this year. It’ll help you find, nurture, and forge relationships with creators like Wanelda. 

Sum it up 

So remember:

1. Ask the right questions 

2. Reframe your offers to up their perceived value

3. Double down and personalize w/ your best influencers

Things aren’t easy out there, but we hope this helps you break through a ceiling or get to the next level. 

All the best,

Ron, Ash & Ankit