ertified platinum WooExpert and uh that means we're sort of verified and endorsed by WooCommerce as an agency partner I think we're just one of three um to have that level of of partnership in the UK and the WooExpert program means that we can share learnings we can represent the needs of our clients directly to WooCommerce we can get extra support um we can um represent their interests um we can also access additional resources training resources for our team um and we can celebrate the success of our team um as experts as well which is really nice in February um WooCommerce invited myself and Atomic Smash's managing director Piers Tinknell to attend their division meetup in Vienna which kind of like a company conference and we joined their the agency program manager Mary on stage for a fireside chat where we were able to talk about emerging trends that we are seeing in uh the ecosystem we were able to represent the interests like I said and the pain points and the needs of our clients on stage and explain to the the the WooCommerce team how merchants that we're representing are using the platform which was great during the chat the chat um so sorry after the chat we also had the opportunity to listen to a merchant who they'd invited as well so this was a really nice example of agencies merchants and platform or a product business coming together um because we're talking about sharing and learning I thought I'd share a couple of things that the merchant um told us during their fireside chat um so they said that one thing that was extremely important to them was the opportunity to experiment with kind of like buying incentives so for example free gifts and um to measure how that had an impact on average order value um and then to look at things like unit sales um and as their main conversion um point to track and then how that evolves or changes month on month year on year based on the experiments that they're running in practical terms it's now easier than ever to share learnings with our peers and our partner organizations and our clients because we're instantly and globally connected um through the internet so um it's a really great um opportunity I think at an event like this to see how what what works when we collaborate and then mirror that when we go home and hopefully you'll have some ideas for for how to do that after this talk okay so we can learn from one another in the WordPress space obviously we're all WordPress enthusiasts if we're here um we're a small percentage actually of a really global community and even wider um set of um people all over the world who use the platform um so let's also think about how we can engage with communities that we are involved with they're outside of the WordPress space so as mentioned um atomic smashers in the process of becoming a b corp we actually share uh and learn through that process as well um if you aren't familiar with uh the process it's a series of sort of checks and balances that you uh that ensure a business not only cares about profit but also cares about people and the planet so it's a long and and detailed and and uh in depth process that ensures that a business is doing its part to take care of the world and the people in it and they also encourage that same openness and transparency so you can share best practices and you can also um acknowledge that the impact you have on the world relates to your clients your suppliers and your organization as well another example in the context of shopping experience um is when we think about returns um PayPal saw the extent of the returns challenge um so 84 percent of shoppers will avoid a retailer in future if they have a bad returns experience um and so they in 2021 acquired happy returns which is a software and reverse logistics company um to help solve these problems for their online merchants they can handle returns and I think that's a really interesting uh approach where they've looked at okay what further down the line what problems are end users having and how can we help to solve that problem now obviously we can't all acquire lots of other businesses to solve our problems but we can look at what's going on in the industry more widely and take inspiration from what works obviously a word of warning I wouldn't just copy everything the big guys are doing you know they don't get everything right either and you know I think if you're a leaner team you actually have the opportunity to innovate more so uh take inspiration from the positives but but don't follow blindly okay I've been talking at you for a little bit obviously this is a conference talk I know you expect that but I'll give you a chance to move slightly now um and and engage a little bit more um so I'm going to run through um these points and ask you as customers because we're all customers um to raise your hand when I get to the one that's most important to you uh as a consumer so um only raise your hand for one please so which is the most significant for you is it the checkout process okay a few thank you um is it the returns process one do you know oh two do you know my that would be my mom's vote definitely she absolutely loves a return um okay what about value for money oh okay yes I appreciate that yeah we have a lot of people who who care deeply about the value for money absolutely what about ethical values okay and environmental impact yes okay lovely and put your hands up if actually you would have loved to have voted for more than one as being extremely significant to you of course yeah that makes perfect sense that's no surprise to me many of you put your hands up there and the extent honestly to which all of these matter to us as as consumers depends on a lot of external factors and internal values that we hold um but these can change over time and actually they vary with different context too um but they're all important in one way or another they all contribute to customer experience and the lasting emotion that um an end user feels when they engage with a brand online and a merchant when they're shopping online so customer experience is everything I think um and e-commerce um brands I believe could think a little bit more like um traditional brick and mortar stores sometimes if you imagine how they used to build local communities um in a location where they were going to open a store I think more can be done to create that lasting positive experience um a memorable experience um to win loyal customers online too this is especially important at the moment because the rising uh cost per acquisition rates mean that brands have to place even more focus on um retention techniques to win loyal customers who will come back again and again so they can maintain profitability okay so together our products our services and our processes can be designed to help merchants create that ultimate customer experience so that they can enjoy a smooth and convenient buying process and spend their way in a money that feels right and meaningful to them whether that's to do with value for money the checkout experience um environmental impact or a combination so why does it matter um well the uh it matters a lot because so many shoppers go deep into a buying journey um and then leave before completing a purchase and actually research into the checkout experience by the the behm the behmard institute found that on average 26 percent of users um have abandoned purchases during the checkout flow solely because the checkout flow is too long or too complex at the same time research into the world's largest the world's 60 largest e-commerce sites revealed the average e-commerce site has 12.8 form fields in their checkout flow and i'm going to argue that's a lot of extra fields uh and unnecessary complexity and possible friction to put customers off so how can we reduce friction at checkout well we can optimize the checkout experience um the checkout is the final hurdle on this page you want to have probably as as few clicks as possible not to overwhelm the user um fewer steps probably means higher conversion rates but i'd argue you should um test that with your target audience um and we also can improve the experience by reducing clutter and reducing inputs when they're not necessary and this is something we did for a client elizabeth shore elizabeth shore has been producing chocolate-based confectionery for more than 140 years which is very long history but they're also looking to the future in a really nice way and they want to improve the online experience for modern consumers um so they also wanted to improve conversions so that their business is profitable and growing um and initially they came to us to merge uh their wu commerce shop their existing wu commerce shop with their existing wordpress site and then to um work through ongoing um iterative improvements to optimize things like the checkout so this was the checkout before this is utilizing a plugin and following um a ux and ui audit we decided straight away to remove the login step because it's presenting a huge blocker for new customers to make a purchase um the emphasis here is really on existing customers logging in and not even on their making a purchase um so we also thought the styling and the wording of how to to skip this um to the to go to the next option was confusing and again we felt it was a detraction from um getting them through the the checkout process so the default um wu commerce functionality actually pushes users directly to the second step which is billing and shipping with a small prompt for returning users to log in um so it's much much less intrusive and um uh on new customers or our guest checkout so we kept the plugin but we uh mirrored the um the wu commerce default um uh way of doing things and we also combined industry research customer research and ux principles to try and decide the objectives of the consumer and to determine exactly how the checkout process should look and feel for them so one thing we did was we combined um the first name and last name fields into a single text field for name this is also more inclusive um having a first name and last name is a naming convention that's traditionally in the western culture not everyone in the world uses a first name and last name so it's more welcoming or appropriate more inclusive to do this anyway we also um made some previously um we made some fields optional including the address line two and the company name and you can see they have a minority input now with with a plus icon we further reduced um friction by collapsing other uh fields such as the gift message into another minority input and finally as the login was such a massive obstruction we switched to prioritizing guest checkout as you can see with an option for returning users to login at the top so for customer experience convenience is obviously a really important piece of the puzzle and value for money is very important too as we discovered earlier when you kindly raised your hands um but purchase decisions often take elements other elements into account too um so for example more and more modern consumers want to spend their money in a way that matches both their needs and their values I like this quote to summarize today's consumer not only wants savings and convenience but also wants to feel good when a company that aligns with their values gets their money so a great example of this um is positive news the first media organization in the world to focus on uh quality independent reporting about what's going right um this is an independent media brand and it's structured as a community benefit society so that's a form of social enterprise and it's a cooperative ownership structure so the organization is actually owned by um readers across 33 countries around the world and its profits are reinvested into creating inspiring journalism for the public benefit they came to us uh with an existing wordpress site and it was very slow and unstable and a separate platform for subscriptions that they needed to bring together and improve over time their primary goal was to strengthen their funding streams and by driving more sales subscriptions and monthly supporters through their site so that they could invest back into um um creating more and more inspiring journalism so we responded with a fully customized wordpress platform and we call this shop um and an ongoing rollout of additional features and improvements over time we utilized really powerful reporting um to develop strategies to improve the the customer experience and provide more value to the client um so that we could deliver reliable growth for them so it was a bespoke WooCommerce shop that enabled customers to sign up to magazine subscriptions make single purchases and make donations and we rolled out some digital improvements such as an intuitive online basket experience and actually we saw a really nice increase in magazine subscriptions after we did this um because we it was designed to encourage more uh conversions and in terms of donations we introduced an interactive support slider uh where um people could use the slider to say how much they wanted to donate um and this was um to give a more engaging experience and to generate more recurring donations um for positive news most importantly I think we helped positive news to personalize customer communications um by segmenting their audience with automated tagging determined by customer behavior on their site um so again making that that customer experience more personal um and more appropriate and there were some really nice um results some really special results so uh page views doubled within the first year of working together with this client um there was a 234 increase in turnover from subscriptions uh within within the first two years of working together and 290 percent um increase in web visitors over four years of working together so I'm really proud of the team for what they did and and their collaboration with with positive news on this one okay here's a statistic that shows just how much values matter to most people uh research commissioned by google cloud found that 82 percent of shoppers want a brand's values to align with their own now obviously values are personal I can't tell you what any of your values are but what I can say is that there's a growing number of of consumers who have ethical or environmental values that they expect uh their favorite brands to align with and they may very well leave if they if they don't so we're at a pivotal point actually for sustainability in e-commerce um there's an increasing appetite for you know uh sustainable product materials packaging and delivery uh plus interest in a circular economy is growing many shoppers who want eco-friendly options are actually willing to pay more for them and according to global web index 41.8 percent of shoppers want brands to be socially responsible google searches for sustainability increased 63 percent um from 2018 to 2021 I'd be really interested to see a more up-to-date stat on that as well and see if it's continuing to rise and in google and in a google survey 82 percent of shoppers said that sustainability is more top of mind now than it was before the pandemic and that again that's no surprise to me so the consumer demand for ethical and sustainable choices is there and it's really up to brands to deliver and it's up to all of us to help them to do that okay another example to to go into this point picked um an organic fruit and veg box supplier um we took on their existing WordPress and WooCommerce site to get it working harder for them part of that was to show their usp's and values um in a in a way that's more clear to their target audience and and that demonstrates benefits to those consumers so we identified areas of the site to do this on the home page for example and we also identified ways that the home page could continue to be effective without overloading people in terms of their limited time or attention um one thing we did was added a visual how it works process um so this communicates information more transparently and more easily um which matches the way that um picked want to get their messages across being very transparent and honest about the way they do business um we rolled out consistent layouts for like product cards um to reduce visual clutter to try and eliminate and eliminate unnecessary cognitive load and to improve cohesion um lots of other things like improving um the use of ctas um and also using the navigation bar for a flexible place to um share really important information so this could be um order um countdowns and order window countdown um important delivery updates uh seasonal announcements um and then also things such as promotions usp's values if they are the most important things to um to cover at the time here's an example of a section of the home page that shows their usp's to their target audience it demonstrates some of the core values that are not just important to pick but also crucial um for those for those consumers you can see the likes of like fast free and fast delivery um there's fair pricing there's optional subscriptions and all of this caters to that that convenience and the value for money side of things but on the other hand we also include the things like certified organic uh plastic free and b corp these things like things like great relationships with their supply chain are very important for their target audience and align with their consumers core values so all of these together contribute to the experience and emotion when a customer is interacting with a brand okay and it's not just uh when transactions through a web store are linked to uh profits that this is important um we also used wu commerce to put on a charity auction um for uh bristol children's hospital charity the grand appeal and this is a website that's a critical part of the charity's income stream um it helps them to support um a hospital that that works with or cares for rather hundred thousand patients per year um so this is uh an example of using wu commerce um to raise money for a good cause um customer experience however should still be the highest priority people are still giving you their money um and giving the charity or the client them their money and helping to make that helping them to make informed purchasing decisions is still really really important in fact you could argue that actually it's it's more important for an organization that's using the money like this um so for example the grand odd auction enables supporters to bid on artworks donated by local communities and artists um each auction page contains um additional information that's really key to the purchases uh the bidder's purchase decision um so for example there's a there's tabs in each product page to inform the user of things like uk shipping costs this is a uk based organization as well as like the option for some personalized international uh shipping options for for people who are bidding from abroad there's also important dates during the auction obviously that's really important for an auction time frames were clear across you know the homepage the product pages and the auction page itself so when funding streams like i say are this important and in this case helping to save lives it's even more crucial to create an experience whereby bidders donors or supporters feel good about the way they're using their money and they want to come back and spend their money with this uh brand or this charity again um during the next campaign so when it comes to improving customer experience we shouldn't be guessing uh i know probably all of us like we really believe are intuition but in this case you know we need to put ourselves um in the the consumer's shoes and that's impossible to do without without data so when we can use website data um which plays a pivotal role in enhancing that um customer experience we can analyze how user behavior we can analyze user behavior rather um to um help businesses gain valuable insights um to make uh in uh decisions based on customers preferences their needs their pain points um and they can leverage this data to help them um understand their customers uh optimized e-commerce experiences um in a targeted uh customized way um and make them more intuitive and effective it also means if there's bottlenecks if there's obstacles or friction points these can be identified and road maps can be developed um to roll out improvements to to solve these hopefully um implement implementing improvements obviously can create things like a smoother navigation better user flow better user experience higher conversion rates and ultimately create that better customer experience that ensures that consumers come back time and time again um to improve overall business performance okay an example of this um in terms of data using data in a better way um we work with oxygen free jumping um who has um indoor activity parks and they've expanded to I think they have five in the UK um and their strategic objective um at the moment is all around um they have ambitious growth targets so they want to increase revenue in line with that but they had at the time a black hole of data in their sales funnel so this prevented them from implementing effective CRO strategies um to build you know incremental improvements to make their site better because they had no data to to rely on they had data but it got lost as soon as someone clicked to book so throughout the sales funnel they couldn't see anything so we worked through a series of initiatives to improve visibility uh of key data and improve um the UX and conversion funnel and this included designing and building a more intuitive uh easy to use online booking system and allow users to book um with as minimal clicks as possible okay so oxygen now has um flexibility uh visibility throughout the sales funnel and they can use that data to inform future business decisions for example how to price products um accurately how to um identify your fixed drop-off points during that process that booking process and we're helping them to use ongoing data analysis to support business growth in term uh interpret um that sales funnel analytics and improve things like average order value which is a really important one for them and so far the results include an 11.6 improvement in conversion rate so I'm really happy with that so far okay I've used a handful of case studies obviously to prove my points today um thank you for listening whilst I did all of that um and I've been able to do that because Tomic Smash has some really good processes in place uh that ensure that we can make iterative iterative improvements and results driven approaches to improve WordPress and WooCom and sites and building out strategies that you know rely on data that we can test um and we can rely on um and that results driven approach um is something that I really want to see more of in in terms of customer experience um it helps our clients to grow and it ensures that the end user gets what they what they want as well all right so hands up if you learn absolutely nothing today okay no oh you're all very kind thank you hands up if you did learn something okay and hands up if um you now have maybe an idea you want to go talk to someone or when you get back to your desk after word camp you're up there's something that you it's provoked an idea that you want to explore further okay that's my favorite one I think you can't argue with that that's that's the best one um so that's all from me thank you so much for listening I really appreciate it way to go test that was impressive thank you let's get a great round of applause for test that's hard it's hard to get up here and actually do all this stuff come on come on come on everyone I don't even know if you guys can hear me I think it's better now right all right well test that was amazing oh thank you I think I forgot to mention that you were involved with WordPress Europe in the past as well as a global lead yes yeah word camp europe yeah you're a global lead as well in the past but there's some very very talented global leads now who are very thankful for putting on this event and it'll be really interesting actually to see um if uh how word camp Europe evolves and if any of you are interested in in organizing that in the future um there's going to be a call for organizers at the end of the closing remarks so I definitely encourage you to get involved if that's something that's interesting to you yeah wonderful great so I do have a quick question or like I have maybe two questions my first question is considering you do so much work for your clients in that sense how would you prioritize them I mean probably a lot just going off your examples there are a lot yeah so I think the work is very varied um and the way that we prioritize is we'd work with we'd delve really deep into the needs of the client right and we'd try and identify the work that's going to provide the the most value for them with the least effort required so it'll be the most value in terms of how it will affect their business but it also will be you know the most cost effective approach um so we're always trying to do it in in the cleverest way um so we can make the biggest change for the in the least time or effort possible all right wow and the second question let's say I'm your client okay because uh I might have an e-commerce website you don't know um I come to you I have all these problems we sit down we consult I understand that every situation is completely different but if I had like a mom and pop shop kind of thing going on what how much time do you think it would take for us to start I know it's a crazy question but like let's say I'm at zero oh I have absolutely no idea it's like how long is the piece of string I think that's a good question because it's a question that a lot of merchants will ask they'll always ask like how long is this gonna take um and actually it really depends on the the requirements that they have you know what are their ambitions how complex is their e-commerce site um are their integrations is it you know multi-site like is it international if it's a mom and pop shop um I know that we commerce have some really um nice ways to get started that's more that's simpler and quicker uh but actually you might not need an agency for if it's like not as complex um but the more complex sites you know you're going to be working on them either iteratively and ongoing or for a really you know intense period of months and months and months because it's a it's a big job to get it right all right so your agency is way too big for me um I don't know does the audience have any questions does anyone want to ask any questions oh please you ma'am you were first oh there's a mic coming away the microphone they're just gonna wait for the mic for a sec if you want you can talk and I'll repeat it so that everyone can hear oh here comes the mic there we go thank you so I'm really interested in the example you gave I think it was the magazine perhaps of that obviously they're selling subscriptions but I believe they were making donations as well yes and you mentioned like the slider that folks could use so first question is is that native WooCommerce functionality or did atomic smash have to custom code that and second question I'm really interested in the efficacy of that donation strategy so did you see an improvement in donations did people donate more because of the fun interactivity of it yeah so the idea actually for that one was to try and generate more recurring donations so it was I think a shift in the way that they were thinking about how to to get supporters they really wanted people to support them over time of course like so many nonprofits do I believe it was custom code but I'll double check that and get back to you and I know that the the I can't give you the exact results off the top of my head but it made a significant improvement and everyone was really happy with that and it's been great to work with with an organization like that and to watch them grow over the years and yeah we're really really happy to work with with organizations that do good and that we can help do more thank you thanks for your question wonderful is there a question down here the sir had a question right here hi I want to ask you do you agree with the sentence that customers hate filling the forms sorry please could you repeat could you agree or not customers hate filling the forms do I agree that customers hate filling informs I think most people don't really like filling in forms and now I've got as a customer if I put myself I'm talking about myself when I answer a form on my phone if it doesn't like already know like my name my email address my surname I get really frustrated exactly to that yeah in one example you mentioned that you combine first name and last name and how to deal with the out of feel yes that's a really good point so actually in this case it wouldn't ought to fill for me however I think sometimes you need to look at the you know the inclusion and make decisions balanced with you know customer experience and inclusion and actually how important is that inclusivity going to be over time you know is it going to outweigh the the speed and convenience of of auto fill and in this case we decided for this client definitely it would I think it's probably a good idea to do it case by case but I think you know if you if you have a decision to make and you're going to be able to make something more accessible or inclusive that's probably the best way to go okay thanks thank you for your question we have a question right over here oh I'm sorry I didn't see you terribly sorry oh no no please yes yes of course hello thank you for such a presentation could you please tell what maybe measurement or analytics instruments are you using to grab the statistics and improve the funnels yeah so obviously we use google analytics and move everyone to like GA4 so definitely if you have clients who aren't yet on GA4 it's definitely it's time like time's running out actually to move that over so I'd recommend that but we also really encourage the use of metoric to our clients we think it's like a really really excellent tool for e-commerce and yeah if any of you have e-commerce clients that aren't utilizing metoric I definitely say give it a go it gives really really like detailed insights that that our clients find really valuable and we're really happy to be able to use that together with them to to come up with those with those insights and also if the client is you know more complex they might have integrations with something like Salesforce and so there'll be other ways to gather analytics as well and using those tools thank you thanks so much Tess I really enjoyed that and big fan of atomic smash and it's been amazing to hear about those examples of wins for customers I wonder if you could share off the top of your head a story of maybe where you worked with the clients and you had a big learning from something that didn't go wrong that agencies or all of us could learn from oh absolutely I'd say one thing that's that's really difficult is if you have a really big and complex e-commerce pro project no matter how experienced the team is it's always going to be so hard to get it right first time so actually you might I would suggest a better approach is to try and do a kind of MVP if you can if your client will be happy with that and then have iterative additional rollouts of different features because there's been yeah absolutely it's really hard to get everything right first time off the top of my head is there's something that I can share that's been really really challenging working with a client yes obviously if you're working with money right this is really high stakes and most of these clients that I'm talking about they take all their revenue through there not all of them that I've given examples for but most of the clients we work for taking their revenue through their site exclusively so if something goes wrong with payments actually if there's something insecure that could be you know really really really terrible so you have to that's a big thing that you have to take a lot of care around and so finding like a payment platform or gateway that you can rely on and secure and that's really important so I would definitely highlight that in terms of e-commerce as being a really big challenge that we face all the time thanks for your question go ahead please I have a question about the auto address feeling some users using from google for example what is your opinion about it it is like to get more faster checkout than before what's your opinion about it yeah I think it's a good idea and usually we recommend to clients to use the system where it can it can autofill or like help you generate your your address using like the postcode again I would use some of those those tools rather than you don't necessarily need to to do it all yourself you can if there's a tool that already works or you can do you know google that's you know making things simpler quicker hopefully and I usually yeah I would recommend that and I know my my team members usually would as well however I would say one other thing it's always important to review the decisions you're making and what you're saying to your clients over time because things change things shift really fast in technology and in terms of say accessibility best practices so it's a really good idea to take time to review what you're doing what recommendations you're making and ensure that you're still happy with those recommendations as time goes on wonderful um wow you're impressive I don't know I can't really say anything else thank you that's so kind um yeah so that's time and uh can we get a final old like it's a big round of applause here for Tess come on everyone here we go thank you all right we're gonna move forward with a little break now but wait don't get up yet we're gonna have a quick update now we're gonna the word camp card game is gonna start now um again you have four cards inside of your swag bags there's a total of eight different designs you can go get uh the other four from upstairs and then uh you can swap them between each other you're collecting them you're mingling you're you can use them as postcards actually all right and then we have tai chi at the wellness center at three o'clock for anyone that's interested in tai chi hi again everyone all right so this time there aren't any announcements and we'll get straight to introducing our next speaker his name is Lorvo Merchic he's from Croatia and it's just amazing that he's just now finishing high school he actually took a break from his final exam so he can come here with us today and share some information of simplifying the lives of individuals so they're drawing on his innovation innovative thinking and passion for creating user-friendly solutions he developed a unique uh plugin called collab cart it's designed to foster customer collaboration so at the young age of 17 he founded a thriving company despite his young age he had the privilege of being a featured speaker at various conferences events where he shared uh his insights on cutting-edge business practices additionally is a columnist uh in the respected publications to the social network blogs where he continues to share his ideas and inspire others to pursue their passions he's done quite a lot for a 17 year old as i'm sitting here reading his bio to you the collaboration between shoppers in general generation z and alpha so that's born between 1997 and 2025 respectively is poised to revolutionize the social proof in several ways these digital natives are the first generations to grow up with digital technologies uh and as such uh they're per they're purchasing oh sorry about that they're purchasing decisions are heavily influenced by social media online reviews and recommendations from friends and peers unlike previous generations gen z and alpha place more value on recommendations from friends and family other than advertisements and even influencers uh or influencer endorsements they prioritize authenticity and transparency and social proof ignoring or rejecting the content that appears inauthentic or biased so more over this is uh this new focus on collaboration has led to the creation of small online communities where members can exchange information reviews and recommendations this type of collaboration emphasizes the power of social proof and improves the customer experience overall their focus on authenticity transparency and community driven recommendations will continue to shape the digital commerce landscape and provide new opportunities for businesses to engage with customers so uh whenever you're ready let's everyone see you let's do this thank you thank you for a beautiful introduction i did my bad yeah hello everybody uh before i start uh it's a great honor standing here in Athens on this beautiful event uh thank you for considering me to be a speaker and i would like to say special thanks to all of you organizing this beautiful event today i will say a few words about how collaboration amongst shoppers in gen z and gen alpha will change social proof but before we start i have one question for all of you so feel free to join me and my question is when you go to some some new city and you face with a problem of hunger you probably go to some restaurant yeah so how do you choose that restaurant based on what like what what does encourage you to go to some restaurant anybody okay reviews so like google reviews or okay because google is a sponsor yeah okay okay so google reviews trip advisor what large queues okay that's also good yeah okay great because you believe them yeah yeah okay okay uh keep keep that in mind because we will come to this a little bit later on okay so let me introduce myself even though uh he did a pretty good job i will do it one more time my name is laura mersic i'm 18 years old and i come from small but beautiful country of Croatia i founded one interesting and innovative e-commerce plug-in which is called collab card and ever since i was a little boy i was always curious about how things work and why they work in a certain way so i started like reading and watching different videos overall i was gaining some knowledge later on i was trying to use that knowledge to solve some basic problems and at one point i asked myself what is my mission because at the end of the day i think that we all should work on some mission and we should focus on our mission and i realized that my mission mission is to provide solutions that can reduce the complexity of everyday's life for people on this planet and i said this just to get a little bit more into my head and to get my perspective here have qr codes for both my linkedin account and twitter account i prefer linkedin so feel free to add me like i said i will i will talk today about how gen z and gen alpha are going to change social proof so let me introduce you to those two generations gen z are all born between 1995 and 2009 so i am personally a member of gen z raise a hand if you are a member of gen z maybe oh nice great great great great i didn't expect that great great i will not ask about gen alpha because okay so gen z interesting generation we are at the moment facing one big live transitions we are finishing our formal education starting a job starting to live alone earning first incomes but we had really specific childhood because we grew up during the recession but on the other hand we grew up with development of smartphones so we are smartphone natives we are the ones who are basically fueling the whole digital transition the e-commerce we are the biggest customers of e-commerce and even though we feel young they are even younger and those those younger guys are gen alpha so gen alpha gen alpha are all those born after the 2010 so the oldest member of gen alpha is 13 and even though they don't physically have credit cards or press the purchase button they have some key roles in decision making when it comes to purchasing an e-commerce well because their parents listen to them and taking account that their parents are mainly those age between 20 and 50 so their parents are leading in terms of technology and economical stability but what's what interests us are two things and that is the spending power so here you have spending power just for united states not whole world and the estimated spending spending power of gen z is around 360 billion while on the other hand the estimated spending power of gen alpha is around 40 billion combined that is more than 400 billion which is a lot and while I was preparing for this presentation I was searching for some data to give you unique perspective of what we do and what we feel and I came across really a lot of different statistics but one especially caught my attention and and was living rent free in my head for several days and that is this one so some marketing experts did our research and they said that average american team receives between four to ten thousand marketing messages per day what does that mean that means that in some perfect week in terms of getting these messages american team will receive 70 000 messages like 70 000 imagine 70 000 of anything that's enormous and then you as a brand or you as a webshop you need to stand out among 70 000 messages it's impossible I mean it's possible but and because we are here we are getting so much messages we just developed a blockade and we don't even feel when you when we get some advertisement on instagram or some mail or something else so question here is how to stand out and it's not easy it's not easy it's complicated but overall it just requires a bit different approach and yeah we get those 70 000 messages but then the end of the day we still buy and question is what we buy we buy brands and yesterday here it was a really nice presentation where it was said that brand is not only a logo or slogan or something else that brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room and I agree with that but I will go one step further I think that brand is community yeah so the best way to if community is good the brand is good for example today we took a family picture and that family picture is more powerful than any wordpress logo and if you ask me what is wordpress all of us here are wordpress this conference is wordpress and we are the ones who will support and who will bring new clients to wordpress same goes for everything else and now when I'm talking about community I will try to say a word too about social commerce so social commerce is something that has been brought up a few years ago I mean it it has been here for several years but lately it became more popular and when you ask someone or when you go to google and type social commerce the first 15 to 20 links will basically be all social commerce is when you buy something through social media so for example through facebook or instagram to to to some other social media network and even though all of that is true social commerce is much more and if you ask me social commerce is actually a community and then how oh just a moment how we see social commerce is that at the front end what we all see is that like social media shopping but what we don't see and what is even bigger what is behind every big front end is even bigger from back end and in this case back end is role of community and social proof so without quality community you don't have quality social media you don't have the followers for your brand on that social media and to spread your community you need quality social proof and now I'll go to the beginning of presentation so I ask you how do you choose your restaurant and let me rephrase what you said so you basically said I'm searching for some proof but not any kind of proof you are searching for social proof and believe me you are not alone because according to some surveys Gen Z and millennials are 99 more likely to rely on online reviews and social media when choosing a restaurant so 99% that's almost 100% that's almost all of us let me just bring water my throat is but believe me when I said that restaurants are not only thing when social proof is deal breaker so for almost everything like I don't I don't have an example but social proof is go or no go for me so I use social proof in everything and not only me but my whole generation is using using social proof now I'll do a step away from the everything I said before and tell you a little story of my own so one day I was browsing through internet searching for for one t-shirt I really want one t-shirt and I found it yeah but I didn't buy it and the after the day like I did everything I added to cart I went to check out and everything but I didn't buy it okay anybody maybe have an idea why I didn't buy it what was the deal breaker for me that time it's not connected with anything I said before okay no okay okay almost but shipping yeah exactly shipping so shipping was almost twice as high as product itself like and even though if somebody offered me 100 million dollars I would still not buy it because I'm not willing to pay for something twice as much than than for product itself and at that moment I just like they thought well okay this is a problem but this is not a problem that I face like my whole generation is facing that problem and like I said before I think that I should reduce that complexity and that I should offer some solutions for those problems so I started thinking what can I do and what can be done like and it didn't take me long to get an idea what do you do when you want to reduce the shipping you ask a friend to join you and then you will share the shipping costs but what happens then from the perspective of the guy who is in charge of that shipping of that card he needs to receive all kinds of info from other sides so one one guy will say I want the size M blue hoodie another we say we'll say I want the size L t-shirt with something written on it and so on so I just went from one problem to another which is not good and I connected them so I created a big mess but what's good is that I realized that those two problems are heavily connected and that I could maybe offer some solutions with which could solve both of them so I again start stopped and started thinking what can be done and not so long after I with the help of friends and some experts I created the collab card plugin which enables customers to shop together on really easy way but that's not that's not the point here point here is that I saw that as a need as a need of a whole generation and then I realized well collaboration itself and shopping with with with someone together is not just something that will happen in future is something that is happening happening now and on the large scale and like uh and like maybe you are scared as a webshop of collaboration but you should not be collaboration is a beautiful thing not only for shoppers because basically for shoppers collaboration is cost cutting initiative but from your perspective as a webshop it might be for example that you are encouraging creation of small shopping groups that will transform to communities which is core of any modern e-commerce or maybe that the individual purchase will be higher because in a single purchase you will have more more shoppers or maybe the thing that consolidating some smaller packages will reduce cost operational expenses like there is a ton of those benefits and you should not be scared and you should search for solutions how to give us the most and the best and the most simple way of collaboration but it also I was also curious like what can I what is also something that happens while we collaborate like something that is not benefit or anything like I mean not benefit but something that happens in the background and I started thinking okay collaboration good I am getting something from some links from my friends but and I also connected that with those 70 000 messages and I soon realized that today some traditional advertisement and influencer endorsements are not as important as they were before moreover today the thing we value the most are recommendation from friends and family and intensity so remember this word intensity and then I realized that we have a shift in trust and emphasis on intensity what are some other newest products of collaboration well first of all review culture so today is completely normal to live a review after you eat something good or you buy something good or you have a good experience in something and one proof of that is that almost half of Gen Z is living their review on social media like posting and personally I don't do that but I often talk with my friends about my experiences so I think almost whole generation is one way or another giving some kind of review or some kind of social proof is it that good or bad it depends on you but then the end of the day your view culture is definitely on its rise on the other hand user genesis content which is strongly connected to reviews is here and when you ask someone what is your genesis content you would get different answers but user genesis content is actually authentic perspective on your business so remember what they said the one slide ago authenticity and when someone gives you authentic perspective it gives you the best ad the better ad than some influence and endorsement and like user generated content is great but what's even greater is when you support it so try to support it like for example you could if you see some review you could easily just screenshot it and put it in your social media that way you're doing two good things first of all you are showing that you see a little people normal customers but at the same time you are encouraging others to do that because some other guy will say look they put some random guy on their social media they are promoting them try to support user generated content now we'll try to circle everything that I said before and finally get give you an answer of on how will we change the social proof itself and then I also was thinking about that before of course so I started thinking you know what's crowdfunding so crowdfunding for example if you heard about Kickstarter is when Kickstarter is a platform that where people crowd community is founding some brand business idea basically the crowd is founding with money something then on the other hand you have maybe Wikipedia where you are founding the base with information then I thought well wouldn't be nice if we could just connect social proof with crowdfunding but I would not use the crowdfunding the founding I would use crowd sourcing that's how I got to crowd source social proof so crowd source social proof is definitely something that should be considered as future of social proof it's not that the social proof itself would be changed but our perspective on it will be and community members will actively contribute with their opinions experiences and feedbacks on products or brands which is excellent for you and on the other hand you are the ones who need to develop some kinds of rating and reviews to allow that community to provide feedback but what I like the most are all of the strengths of crowd source social proof so first of all you see this pointer right here okay so you see one picture and I see our picture we both think that our picture is most accurate but it's not but if we combine our pictures we get more accurate and more complete picture now think like this you have some product and you're getting one review of from one side and then you're getting another so crowd source social proof offers a diverse representation from different people for different backgrounds different preferences different behaviors and so on overall crowdsourced social proof is only thing to give you a complete picture of your product and most accurate picture of your product on the other hand to do anything today you need to be I mean you need to follow the trends to be trendy and I I agree that that this is really not simple that's extremely difficult but you can help yourself and not you but others can help you so crowdsourced social proof is continuously going to get new members and those new members will join contribute the social proof we evolve all over time and it will be up to date which is great for you and now if you use those two strengths you have pretty good chances of standing out among 70 000 messages but last but not least multiple community members endorsing a product or service through positive rent ratings and reviews builds trust and credibility but not any kind of credibility authentic credibility and what we said before is that the authenticity is key in getting to us like okay so last but not least accessible information and community engagement crowdsourced social proof really is accessible and it's up to you also to offer the most simple way of us getting to that proofs and like I said you need to encourage that it's up to you but also community members actively participating in discussions I'll give one example also for WordPress so I know that there are several Facebook groups and Reddit groups where people sometimes have a problem and then the community is the one who solves that problem and that's great and that's something that gives additional value to WordPress and bars are of course empowered with the insights they need to make confident choices based on collective wisdom of the crowd yeah and like I would go to the beginning how to stand out among 70 000 messages and how to get to us because I know that's a big problem not only for small brands but also for example for WordPress because WordPress is having a tough times in getting Gen Z as there so it's like if you ask any of my peers it's more likely that they will know for example Shopify or some other brands than WordPress and I know that you are having a tough time but what you can do you just need to listen to us and offer us solutions or if there are some solutions try to get the solutions and to support those solutions I think that I was a little bit faster and I was a little bit not good with time management so please feel free to ask me any questions yeah all right that was impressive I'm not gonna lie sorry I was a little bit thank you wow wow so this is from everyone thank you it's from the WordPress team and then we just wanted to keep doing what you've been doing big rounder applause everyone big rounder applause keep going keep going come on you've all eaten just do it all right so I think I'll start with my questions again because I don't know I'm curious um you're over 17 you're still in school you've done this research you've created this application when do you sleep well you know they said that there's no such a thing as a lack of time there's just a better organization so you know if you organize your time well you can do a lot of things do you do seminars for time organization can you teach me how to do this I'm 32 when I still have issues for enough money I'm very serious about this question too all right so a second question that's a little bit more serious well the previous one was actually quite serious to be honest but you mentioned that the generation the earlier generations out is the alpha and so forth they don't uh okay so they don't care about the tv commercials or things that are like really commercial and expensive and I don't know trying to sell you something maybe magazine that they don't care about those either but why don't they care about social media influencers they're like the same age they're young they're still in school why why aren't they well let me ask you a question so you see an influencer and you know that he's getting paid he won't promote a product without getting paid and on the other hand you have a really good friend who buys some products and then recommends it to you who you believe yeah I picked a friend but what I picked a friend no no no you're right so same words for us we just we know that the influencers are getting paid and no matter how good the influencers are they need to live from something and that somethings are sponsorships so I will believe a friend before uh influencer yeah that makes sense does anyone here disagree with that no hands I guess you're right Ravel all right so let's take some questions from the audience now right oh that was quick uh one moment the microphone is coming your way so you can ask your question we can all hear you nice and clear it's likely they deliver you right there when it's arriving you're not understanding which side of they are arriving okay so hello nice to meet you uh first I want to congratulations to your to you uh because you're so so young I'm 21 actually and when I see people that are younger uh that are young I also I am also a generator in Z and I started in warpers when I when I was like 16 or 15 so I'm the younger person the as far as I know in the Italian community so I'm so happy when I see people like me so congratulations keep going thank you and now uh what I wanted to say was that actually you said before that uh you seemed like WordPress was too hard to use I actually my experience never heard uh from any people also like 18 17 16 never heard about that what they have always heard is that people think that they are too hard because they they see the html code they said oh no I don't want to go to do that so why you say that this uh is uh is too complicated thank you sorry for this uh maybe uh off topic question no no no uh so uh what was that a few days ago I was the biggest uh the university in Croatia which is called the electric which does that uh so they they they produce developers at the end of the day and I asked them so what do you why do you don't I'm personally not the expert for for the things I just get what people told me but they said that they it's not just it's too complicated and and things like that but they prefer other things and that is exactly why for example Gutenberg is developing to to to acquire our generation and to to to to to to get to our generation I I think that it's easier today and when if you go now to youtube and say and type how to start a webshop there will be more tutorials about how to start it on Shopify than on WooCommerce and it's maybe easier to learn than to learn WordPress if that satisfies your answer I don't want to take your thunder here but um I'd like to add to that that there with WooCommerce and with WordPress you have so so many options so so many plugins whereas with spot the spot nothing against WooCommerce my plugin is on WooCommerce only at this moment so I support WooCommerce let's go with course but I'm just saying like what I hear from my people from people my generation yeah yeah so we all want to make it better yeah yeah right because we all love it yeah every day all right any other question from the audience come on oh I'm sorry oh you're right in front of me terribly sorry for that one microphone here please thank you first of all I really find your idea very very good and very pioneer but I'm not sure about how you imagine the collaborative crowd crowd source collaborative proof hey is it like um in independent networks or in a certain platform it's an idea or are you planning to create a platform no it's it's not an idea it's just the perspective it's just how we are going to look at social proof we'll not look at single one review or something we will try to collaborate all of the all of those to found one big social proof you know so there's not like a platform something to do that just our perspective and our position from where we look on that okay thanks thanks next question oh right up there uh yeah sorry I'm circling back wait wait wait wait wait I don't see you I'm up here okay more corner sorry yeah so circling back two questions to your comments on influencers and I think what you said made a lot of sense you know obviously you're gonna trust your friend more and your your your more personal recommendations but do you feel that your generation has perhaps strengthened that view because I mean as an adult I have that view too um and I'm sort of boomer generation almost uh genics yeah thanks that's generous um uh does that have something to do with the fact that you as a generation are receiving 70 thousand marketing impressions per week and you do you feel that as a generation you've developed a resistance to marketing in general okay I'll get it yeah yeah that's the question not to general but okay like I said those 70 thousand messages are basically some traditional and an old-fashioned marketing messages and or influencer endorsements and yes we raise some resistance so that that's why you need to find new approaches to get to us yeah and and in order to to to to acquire more customers the best way to do us is through community so you need to um uh encourage your community to do that so uh follow on question if I may so the your resistance seems to me like it is a lack of trust or it's found in a lack of trust and then if we as uh not just the WordPress community if the marketing world as a whole starts infiltrating our communities does that not mean that you will eventually get to the point where you lose trust in your own communities as well I mean that super philosophical question there but we're in Greece you know a land of philosophers so um to put a little more context on it though um you your generation has raised those barriers that those resistance levels I think probably faster than any generation in history um and I wonder if that isn't going to be the exactly the same for whatever marketing trick comes next uh so uh I suppose my concern here is that we're starting an arms race it's always been an arms race but we're really accelerating it now less a question more of a comment yeah okay so if you asked someone 10 years ago how will marketing look today they will they would probably not give you an accurate answer and that's why I cannot give you an accurate answer right now so we can only predict or try to predict and go with the flow all right next question from the audience please oh this sir right up here quite a few questions thank you hello hello first congratulations for achieving many things in at your at the very young gates I think sky's the limit thank you from there so uh people form communities uh big or small do you think that ethical consumption that I believe is getting bigger will get in the way of forming view community bigger communities and I don't know in the near future maybe make reviews seem obsolete like people will start buying products based based on their ethical based on their on their beliefs okay or on what is ethical rather than oh that person or my friend was happy with that product could you repeat one more time please excuse me I could you repeat one more time I didn't yeah do you think that people in the future okay we'll start buying uh stop or start buying products based on their beliefs and uh what what what does their belief means on their ethical or thinking that oh this product is more environmental friendly or okay okay okay okay yeah is better than me rather than based on critics and reviews from friends or family but uh those two things go really really well along with each other because you will get recommendation look this product is environmentally friendly and you you support that so those two things will probably go with one with another you know because what I don't know if you understand what I want to say to you and and maybe yeah there will be some uh situations when one will go against other but as I said that the beliefs you are surrounded with people who have same beliefs as you pretty much so those recommendations will go with your beliefs okay thank you all right any other question from the audience I don't see it's pretty bright and there we go that's much better um no nothing all right I need a really big because we're not that many people and we really should be a really big final round of response here for Lorvo bravo man bravo all right that's it for this track uh before everyone gets up and starts leaving I uh I'd like to suggest that everyone goes over to track one for the final talk of the day it's going to be on variations on the theme 20 years of wordpress um we're going to have automatics product architect there and we're going to have the product leader met mullenweg so please attend that final uh chat also a quick update just in case you guys missed it before we're all going to the party we're all going to party at night and you all have to come to the lohan like nightclub any details can be provided by anyone in the blue shirts if you for some reason don't know where it's going to be or what you're going to do or hell you can ask us uh what to wear but feel free feel free we'll give you some advice uh you can ask the locals what it's like there too just come to the party all right um that's all that's all for this track we're going to close it off slowly so thanks everyone thanks again thanks thank you thank you


If you're somebody like me who struggles with trust issues and it hurts your ability to make friends then you're definitely going to want to listen to this story about how Carly Steele gave me some excellent advice. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, my channel is all about mental health and what I like to do typically is pull different topics from the YouTube community to try to teach you how to improve your mental and emotional well-being. So if you're into that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And real quick, real quick, Carly and I we have a collab up and we miscommunicated a little bit on the timing of it yesterday so you might not have been notified about the video. But I actually taught Carly three very simple mindfulness meditation tips. So make sure you go check that video out, it will be linked up in the info card and at the end screen and all that kind of stuff. Go check it out because I know how many of you say that you can't meditate or you want to meditate but you don't know how and all that stuff. These are three very, very simple ways to start meditating and strengthen that prefrontal cortex baby. But anyways, let's jump into this topic. So this is a little bit of a story time. Before I get started, I asked Carly, I texted her yesterday, I'm like, hey girl, I've been thinking about some of the advice you gave me when we were having a talk, would you care if I made a video about it? And she's like, do your thing boo. I'm like, all right, cool. So yeah, a couple weeks ago I was in Los Angeles and Carly happened to be out there but I went out there and I did collabs with people like Thomas Halbert, Psych IRL, Illymation, Swoop, some others. So yeah, I was out there and Carly was one of them too and Carly and I, we've been friends for a little while and that was the first time we got to hang out in person and whatever. But anyways, I want to talk about trust issues and making friends. So I was having this conversation with Carly and I want to give you some context and some backstory because I think this is an important topic that a lot of us struggle with, okay?  I struggled with abandonment issues, trust issues from a very young age. Like, if you can't trust your own mom, who can you trust, right? But anyways, as I grew older, like, you know, I had friends who were like family to me because my mom was drunk in California while I was in Las Vegas, my dad worked a lot. So I had friends who were like family. But as time went on and I started making friends and all these other things, like, here's the thing that a lot of us don't realize is that all of our relationships are absolutely screwed. And this is why I try to teach people to be better parents and all that kind of stuff. Because, you know, like I can look back and like, what were my examples? What were my examples of healthy romantic relationships? What were my examples of healthy friendships? You know what I mean? And like what the examples were in my life weren't all that healthy. And I have learned behaviors with what my friendships were. But a lot of my friendships were revolved around this kind of give and take, give and take, give and take, give and take, right? But not only was that unhealthy, but, you know, I hung around with not so great characters and then I would be shocked that they would hurt me or, you know, do something like to break my trust or whatever it was. And I'm huge into accountability and personal responsibility. It's something I started to realize, especially when I started working on my mental health was I am choosing the wrong people to hang out with. You know what I mean? Like that's my issue. Now, when I, you know, started working on my mental health, like I know I preached to you guys all the time about finding a support group, you know, getting in the Facebook group or getting in the Discord server, all these other things. And I have a support group. I have a solid support group that is very small, very concise because I still have massive trust issues when it comes to people, just massive, massive trust issues. And I decided to limit my friend group, you know what I mean? And I don't rely on that many people, especially because, you know, I found that many people are unreliable. Hell, I can be unreliable, you know what I mean? So I've limited it, very, very, very small. Like, you know, it's my beautiful girlfriend Tristan. I have my friends who I got sober with in that sober living house over six and a half years ago. Three of us, well, four of us, were all still best friends and we could turn and talk to each other.  And I do have some amazing people, you know, in the YouTube community who are part of my support group, Carly Steele being one of them. But I'm going to mention some others in a minute. So anyways, I've lived for years with a very, very small friend group. Like even at work, even at work, I kind of kept to myself and all these other things. Like, I, you know, this is something that you might struggle with too. Like I'm afraid to build relationships with people because people can be messed up, man. People can be messed up. So like as a way to prevent myself from getting hurt, I've built these walls up, right? And being in California, meeting all these other awesome creators, like I mentioned, like Donna and Thomas and Swoop and, you know, Illy and all these other things, there was one night of that trip where, you know, I didn't really have anything going on. Carly didn't have anything going on. I'm like, what's up girl? You want to hang out, record another video or something? And she's like, yeah, sure. So I drove all the way out to where they were. I booked my hotel on the wrong side of town.  And we were just talking about stuff, right? Human people stuff, not necessarily YouTuber stuff, but it was kind of YouTuber stuff. And I mentioned this in a video the other day about the plus minus equals and like I have to learn from people who have been through things before. And it's actually funny. I'll talk about that in a second how that's kind of bit me in the butt. But anyways, I was asking Carly, you know, but I was telling Carly about my trust issues and stuff and how I'm scared.  I'm making friends with other creators and I am absolutely terrified, right? I am terrified because the more people I let in, that's the more opportunities for people to hurt me, right? And as my channel is growing, you know, obviously I have people like reaching out to me. They want to do guest videos and stuff. And a lot of you know I do a ton of guest videos. I'm actually going to be hanging out with Carly and Illy and Matt, my co-host and my buddy Aaron from For the Love Attack. We're all going to Playlist Live in Florida. It's going to be a great time.  And you know, you always got to like wonder about people's motives or people using me. And like here's the thing, I learned a long time ago, like I don't care if people quote unquote use me. Like I just like helping people, right? So if I host small creators on this channel, and by the way, all the small creators I've worked with, phenomenal.  But I have gotten messages from other people who I haven't let do guest videos because they're just trying to get, you know, the clout or whatever it is like that. But I'm telling Carly too, like I worry about my friendships too, especially with somebody like Carly, right? Like I guarantee, I guarantee there's going to be a comment down below talking about how like I'm using Carly for like clout or views or whatever. And I'm asking Carly about this. And basically the advice Carly gave me and shared some of her experience with me is like, it's going to happen. That's it. It's going to happen. And it was just like, I'm like, oh my God, because that's acceptance. Like that is acceptance right there. And when you just accept that it's going to happen and you quit future tripping and worrying about things that haven't happened, things get easier. Like Carly was sharing with me about how people have screwed her over in the past and stuff like that. And it's just like, you deal with it as it comes and you move on. Like that's all you can do. And there's this balance. There's this balance of like, you know, like trusting people and then just like your willingness to like move through it and overcome it.   These are things. These are inevitable. Like this is a promise that I can make you.  But Carly talked to me about just accepting it and just doing your own thing. I'm like, dang Carly, that's legit, right? But it's something that I'm honestly struggling with right now and it's something that I'm working through, you know?  Like, are you blocking people off? Are you putting walls up? Are you doing this to prevent yourself from being hurt? Because as we know, as we know, one of the biggest causes of depression is our lack of connection with others and isolation. And here's the thing. I've had a lot of people in my life who only kept me around for advice, right? They only kept me around to get advice. Like before I did this YouTube channel, I was just the guy everybody turned to for advice. I had friends who never talked to me, never wanted to hang out or anything like that, but they would just hit me up when they wanted advice because they were having relationship problems or problems with their family or their job or whatever. And I'm like, what the heck? You know what I mean? And it's just like you deal with those things as they come. But now I'm dealing with it in the YouTube community and it's something that I'm going to move through. Like I have in every other situation. And this is nowhere near as bad of what I've dealt with in the past. Like if any of you have had a sales job, like I used to years and years ago, there's so much backstabbing and talking behind people's back and I ain't got time for that stuff. But anyways, I'm moving through that right now. Like it's funny because I was talking to my therapist. I have a better help therapist for everybody who thinks it's a scam. Like I have a real licensed therapist through better help as many people do. Anyways, that's besides the point. Like I ask her questions and advice and opinion and all these other things and she's like, why? She's like, why do you ask me that? And like we had a conversation about validation and everything. And I told her like I was taught when I first started working on my mental health, like I can't always trust this thing. I cannot trust this thing right here. So I have to turn to other people for advice, right? Like I have to ask them and say, what do you think? What do you think about this situation? Like, you know, and this is advice to all of you too. Like ask other people. If you think that you're acting crazy, like ask somebody else. Bounce that opinion off of them, right? And now it's kind of biting me in the butt. Like, but I have to overcome that and all of us need to. So I'm going to let you know the bad but then we're going to get into the solution. Just growing on YouTube, like I try to make friendships. I try to, you know, build bonds with people and all sorts of things. And like, it is just bananas. And I'm fighting every day to just like, not put those walls back up. But yeah, there's legitimate people, like, and this isn't to be vague or anything, just out of respect for other creators. I'm not going to put them on blast. But this is like real stuff. And some of you might deal with it at a new job or whatever. But I've had conversations and friendships or what I thought was friendships with a lot of people and just talked to them and things like that. And like, I've had people turn on me in this community and it's like crazy. Like it is nuts. And I'm like, oh my God, and I've been to Tristan about it. I've been to my support group about it. I'm like, what is even happening? And people can just switch like that. And my old abandonment issues and trust issues, just they just want to come up and say, see, Chris told us to don't make friends, don't have friends, don't do it. And the thing that I worry about as well, because we know what's going on in the community and like the backlash towards me, by the way, I have a great video coming out later today about that. You're going to want to stay tuned for it. But like something I have to worry about is like these new friends that I'm making, are they going to completely neglect everything that they know about me? Everything they know about me through conversations, phone calls, DMs and everything like that. Because they're going to see one video and say, you know what?  That's something that I have to worry about today. And that's crazy to me. It's absolutely crazy to me. But you know what? It's going to happen. It's absolutely going to happen. And what would I tell all of you? What would I tell all of you in that situation? Right? And here's what I would tell you. Like if that happens to you, chances are they weren't that good of a friend to begin with. You know what I mean? I've had people tell me, like as I grow on YouTube, like Chris, I know you're a friendly guy and like to talk to people, but be careful. Be careful. We live in a community where people are trying to expose everybody and be careful what you say in DMs, because people might use it against you, all these other things.  Like, no, man, I'm just making friends and dah, dah, dah. And I'm sitting here.  Because as I've been struggling, with some of the backlash I've been getting and stuff, I reach out to people. I reach out to people in the community and those of them who have been in the community for a while, it's definitely, like this has all happened for me in a year. The 100,000 happened in a year, right? Happened like that, right? And I turn to these people and I ask them questions and stuff like that.  And then I'm just like, oh my god, like what are they going to use these DMs for? You know what I mean? But anyways, let's get into the solution. I know for a fact that building relationships with people is one way to combat my own depression, one way to combat my own anxiety. That is a fact, right? And I always teach people to widen their net and that's what I'm trying to do too. I'm trying to have more and more and more and more people in my support group, especially in the YouTube community, because I need other creators who have gone through it. So like I was telling you guys, like it's going to happen, right? But I've met such amazing people who I can turn to at any time, you know, as long as they're awake and talk to them. And I have to remember that. Like Carly is definitely one of those people who I can talk to, you know, we talk through texts and stuff like that. We get to hang out this week. My co-host Matt, phenomenal, you know what I mean? Ryan from Crimson Studios, like he's been there for me. I've been able to talk to Donna from Psych-I-R-L since I left. Thomas, been able to talk to him. Swoop and I talk, you know. Illy and I talk, can't wait to see her.  She's been with me like since the beginning. We both started out on YouTube trying to make little mental health channels and all that. And I'm forgetting a ton of people. Repzilla, Repzilla and I, you know, like he's a great friend and stuff like that. And I just, you know, I just got to hope that, you know, I know them. They know me.  But if not, if not, like through all this stuff, I've had, you know, my friends and family members and like, it's crazy. I made a video a long time ago about people caring about me. It makes me uncomfortable. Like the amount of DMs and text messages and calls I get just saying, hey, are you okay? Are you okay? Hey, I saw, I saw somebody saying some stuff on Twitter. Are you okay? Like I'm like, oh, don't worry about me. I'm fine. You know what I mean? But it's, it's a reminder that I have to remember that I have made some amazing friends. And I want all of you to remember that too. You have people who love and care about you.   Yeah, all that stuff's going to happen. But again, just remember, like those weren't friends that you wanted in your life in the first place. You know what I mean? But find out who those good people are like. The last thing I'll say is when I got sober, when I got sober, a lot of friends disappeared, right?  I teach that to my clients at the treatment center. Like it's just like, listen, when you get sober, you're going to lose a lot of friends, like just so you know. And it's nothing I haven't been through before. It is absolutely nothing I haven't been through before. Right? So all we can do is learn from these things, keep moving forward. And at the end of the day, the strong relationships that we build with amazing people like Carly or whoever you have in your support group, some of you have made amazing friendships in the Discord server and the Facebook group. Like those are far greater than our fear of being hurt by people. And I hope that makes sense. All right, but anyways, again, thank you Carly for dropping some truth on me about acceptance. Don't forget to go check out our video where I taught her some mindfulness meditation and I have another guest video or collaboration that we recorded together that I might post while I'm at Playlist Live or maybe I'll post it tomorrow. I don't know. I'll post it sometime. All right. But anyways, let me know your thoughts and opinions and experience down below. Do you have trust issues? Is it hard for you to build relationships because you're worried about people hurting you or back stabbing you or whatever it is? Like let me know down in the comments below. But let me know what you're doing to fight that voice in your head that is telling you to put those walls up. All right. But anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And a huge, huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon. You are all amazing. And by the way, everybody over on Patreon, I just put up an exclusive video yesterday. So make sure you go check it out. All right. Thanks again so much for watching. I'll see you next time.


Today is the 1st of April and I mean Addis Ababa, we are about to start the 13th international conference on community-based adaptation which is going to be for the next five days from the 1st to the 4th of April and the theme for this year is on climate finance, adaptation technology and policy engagement, we will be running these three things together and we hope to have outcomes from the 13th conference although this is the 15th year we've been doing them, the first three were done two years apart and after that it became an annual event and we hope to come out with recommendations that can go to the climate summit that the UN Secretary General is having in New York in September and particularly through the global commission on adaptation that has been set up with Mr. Ban Ki-moon, Bill Gates and Kristalina Georgieva from the World Bank who are preparing a major international global report on adaptation in which we are going to be putting inputs particularly from the community-based level with the community of practice that has developed in many developing countries and even in developed countries who are going to be here. We expect several hundred participants to be with us for the next few days, a lot of discussions and hopefully some very solid recommendations on how further support can be given to the work that the vulnerable communities are already doing to help themselves but not receiving sufficient help from the global level to help them. We hope we can improve that situation with the climate summit in September followed up by the COP25 which will be in Chile in Santiago in December where IID holds an annual event called Development and Climate Days. We are trying to link the CBA conference which is on community-based adaptation with the COP meeting Development and Climate Days and get the message there as well. So from the next few years we're hoping to be more strategic with these conferences and have some outcomes that we can continue to take forward and particularly in support of the most vulnerable communities to enable them to adapt to the impacts of climate change.