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Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Simon Girardin, CRO Manager of ConversionAdvocates, located in Montreal, QC, Canada.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

I am a Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) consultant who specialized in this field after being a generalist growth consultant for 3 years. In 2021, I was promoted from a specialist to CRO product and team lead in a digital marketing agency. I was asked to shape the service, which was in the infant stage. The service was, at the time, bare-bones and only offered two deliverables: site audits and landing page creation. The issue with both of those is that they are reactive and short-term focused, which had the effect of creating a constant client turnover. Team members never had time to gain familiarity and efficiency with a business before the project was over, with the average project lasting around 6 weeks.

I repositioned the service by creating an entire Experimentation program from scratch, including a consultative framework, a research roadmap, multiple research deliverables, and all the documentation to create transparency around the work. All of it was meant to shift the typical client from a singular project over a few weeks to long-lasting partners that wanted to invest in a continual long-term relationship. The target customer was defined as a business that believes in a long-term investment with CRO and valued learnings over the sheer wins that experimentation provides. The target market was mostly in Montreal and Toronto for e-commerce businesses between $1-10M AAR.

Tell us about yourself

I graduated with a master's in e-commerce, which was life-changing. There, an unexpected trifecta completely altered the career path I had thus far engaged.

I learned about the Business Model Canvas (BMC) and was immediately inspired by the concept of shipping products early and leveraging real-world feedback to adapt and pivot.
We studied multiple business case studies where we would evaluate business models, agility, and sustainability. I found an interest and a skill in finding improvement opportunities.
An advanced statistics class taught me about statistical tests and the reliability of the data we consume. I was captivated by the high degree of the untrustworthiness of data flowing around and by the seemingly robust and reliable results of statistical tests.

I combined all three of those highlights from my master's to the current role I have as a UX consultant. This led me right into the field of Conversion Rate Optimization. What motivates me most is working with smart business executives and being able to present insights that disrupt how they see their business and customers. Seeing them click and understand as I connect the dots always engages in fascinating conversations. I also love working with passionate individuals who work against very aggressive growth goals.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

Building the entire CRO program was by far my greatest achievement. Spoiler - after 6 or 7 months, I realized that I couldn't do everything alone and that a properly performing CRO program requires 14 discrete skills. Building frameworks helped visualize concepts and drive value to clients to constantly increase and win their buy-in. Creating deliverables was helpful in articulating the observations and recommendations to have the most impact and finding which would excite my clients the most.

Productizing the service into a sellable package taught me about margins and balancing team bandwidth, as well as an invaluable lesson on comparison shopping and using value-based billing rather than an hourly rate to account for the added value of some tools and deliverables.

What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?

In my case, the hardest part was that while building an entire program with its deliverables, timelines, tools, and frameworks is all work you can do yourself, you also need to get clients and actually deliver it. The digital marketing agency made me collaborate with its generalist sales team, which caused challenges in agreeing on client qualification criteria and billing structures. You most likely can not perform in every area of business, either due to time constraints or skill constraints. Facing this challenge, I felt mostly caged in front of the world of sales which was unfamiliar, and this led me to take a consultative sales approach. At the end of the day, it was not the part I enjoyed most out of my work, even if it was necessary. To summarize, building something for a specific audience but then failing to sell to that exact target customer is a recipe for mitigated success.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

Find smart people to cover your weaknesses. I teamed up with the best data analyst I have known to help me sort through issues like weighting criteria out of a prioritization chart.
Map out the key activities required for full success before you start building something. If some activities are not your forte, get some support immediately. You need to crush it in every aspect, and you don't have time to work with people who do not 'get it.'
Make sure the journey ahead will passionate you. I had a lot of fun building my service, even if I faced drawbacks and pitfalls. Having fun pushes you to continue.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://conversionadvocates.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simongirardin/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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