Shadowing Practice: I built an app and no one's using it - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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All right, Drew, what's up?
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We're cooking.
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Can you hear me?
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Nice to meet you, man.
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Nice to meet you, too.
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Talk to me.
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What's the problem?
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So we made the app for fence contractors.
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You made an app for defense contractors?
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That's right.
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So it allows them to show their client a fence right in their yard.
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Oh, fence contractors, not defense contractors.
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I was like, those are wildly different things.
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One people are blowing up fences.
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The other person are building them.
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Good to know.
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All right.
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Yeah, we're trying to cross country lines.
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All right, so we got fence contractors.
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All right, you built an app for them.
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All right, there's an app for that.
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What's revenue?
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About half a million a year.
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All right, 500K per year.
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What's revenue retention?
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Our churn's about like 8% monthly.
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Ooh, that's high.
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That's high, okay.
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8% a month.
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All right, that's pretty high.
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All right, what's the price?
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It's $199 a month, cancel anytime.
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And for two users, like five users, it's $2.99 a month.
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Okay, got it.
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And so what does this app do?
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So it actually allows them to show their client a fence, like right in their yard.
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It's like the dream outcome on the value equation.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Put it right into their yard.
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Yeah, it's a sales tool.
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Yeah, yeah, exactly.
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Okay, so why are they churning?
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So really like our biggest thing is if they don't use it
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and like sell a fence within the first 10 days, they churn.
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If they actually go out and we hear them sell a fence, they literally love the product and it's very rare that they can't.
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Okay, how do you get leads right now?
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We'll cover that in a second.
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How do you get leads?
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So we run Facebook ads.
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Okay.
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Instant form.
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We have a couple of questions up front.
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And our automation puts them right into our CRM.
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And we reach out right away.
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Yeah, what's CAC? About $130.
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Damn.
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CAC?
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Not lead?
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Not CPL?
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CAC?
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Cost of our customers?
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$130?
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Like, when we hit, like, a really good ad, our cost per lead is like $1.50.
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That's absurd.
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Hit one that was crazy.
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That's insane.
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I would not get used to that because it will not stay there.
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That is insane.
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I do a lot of the sales personally.
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So right now I'm not paying a commission, which really helps.
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Yeah, well, yeah, that's nice, right?
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When you do things yourself.
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Okay, so I mean, LTV to CAC is still fine, but this is what I want to encourage you to do.
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Do not scale your ads at all until you fix this churn issue.
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There's no point.
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You're just going to pour it out the back.
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There's no point.
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Zero point whatsoever.
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Like, you want to be able to figure out what activation is.
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Now, if you know that they sell a fence, right, with the thing, they stick, right?
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We know this.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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So then the question is, how can we incentivize them or how can we make it easier for them to have that happen faster?
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So what do you, do you charge $199 up front for this?
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So we do like a 10-day trial with like the credit card attached.
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Like, we say like, you know, it's how we've always done it.
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if you don't like it in the first 10 days, you can cancel.
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Yeah.
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Dude, I think it's a trial issue, dude.
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Yeah.
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That also includes during the trial the 8%.
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So it might be lower once someone actually converts to a client.
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Yeah, I see what you're saying.
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The pie equation, our hypothetical max might be too low.
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Yeah.
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Well, you do need to figure out what the post-conversion churn is, not total churn, especially if you're smaller,
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you factoring your trials and churn is going to mess all your numbers up.
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100%, yeah.
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Okay.
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So I'll say this.
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So you go through the money models book already?
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Yep.
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So the free trial with penalty would be the first improvement that you could make to this.
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That's like the smallest operational change that you could do.
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The second level of it, yeah, that's free trial with penalty, you could use that as a front end offer instead of a downsell offer,
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and just say, like, we will give it to you for free as long as you XYZ, right?
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So you have to use it.
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Right.
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Like, if you go out and sell someone a fence right in their yard, it's free for the first 10 days.
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Well, you're already doing that, so there's no reason for them to do it.
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You know what I'm saying here?
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Okay.
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Yeah, I see what you're saying.
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You have to have a penalty associated with it.
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That's option one.
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Okay.
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Option two is that you charge them up front
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and then say I will rebate you the $199
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if you use the app to put it in at least two people's yards or three people's yards, whatever the average.
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Let's say they close 30%.
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Say like if you do three yards in the first 10 days where you put the fence in, I'll rebate you back the $199.
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And I'll tell you why I'm doing it because I know that if you do it, you'll stick.
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Let me just show you my cards because as soon as you use the tool, you'll make more and you'll never leave so I'm gonna incentivize you to use it.
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I think what you're saying totally okay.
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Cool so just make the second month free.
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Okay so we literally just charge $199 up front if they use it two
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or three times we can give them their money back right there.
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Right well you don't need to give them their money back just don't build the second month build the third.
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Okay yeah that makes sense okay.
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Yeah that would be it like we just have to incentivize activation because if You can get your churn down to like, because you need to be at 80 plus percent per year
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or higher for this to be something cool 100 yeah 100
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that's all you have to do just get it to 80 a year
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so you want to be at like less than 2 a
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month i know it's got to be yeah it's got to
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be like closer to 1 a month all right i'm a man on a mission i'll make it happen okay
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and i I want you to do this though.
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Measure the churn from trial, basically don't even look at churn on the front end, look at conversion rate, and then post conversion rate measure churn.
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That's what you should be looking at.
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Okay, so like only measure the churn once they've actually converted into a supply chain.
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Right, yeah, and your true CAC, I'm guessing now, because it's costing you 130 bucks to sign up a trial, right?
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I gotta look at it closely, but I'm pretty sure it's something like that, yeah.
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Yeah, so, and then let's say it's one out of three trials convert, I don't know.
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It's something like that, yeah.
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Yeah, so your actual CAC is closer to 500, not 130.
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Okay.
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Cost to acquire a customer, not a trial.
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I think it actually is 130.
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It is around 130.
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Okay.
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Like right now, say we get 100 leads, I'll sign about, you know, eight of them on a trial and we'll get like three or four or something like that.
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Okay.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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But yeah, I would go rebate, second month free.
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They bill, you know, you bill them up front.
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It'll also get them way more likely to commit to it.
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Also, with $200, you can be on call if they have any issues tech-wise.
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100%.
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To make sure they can see it.
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Sign someone up.
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We're like BAMFAM, like right to an onboarding.
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Great. So we do that.
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We go right into an onboarding, teach them how to use it.
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And then, honestly, once we get them, they place the fence right in.
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Yeah, word.
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So all your effort is activation, dude.
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That's it.
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All the effort, all the incentive goes there.
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Once you have that, the rest of the machine works.
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100%.
Context & Background
In this engaging interaction, Drew shares insights about an app designed specifically for fence contractors. The conversation delves into the challenges faced by the app, particularly regarding user retention and its effectiveness as a sales tool. The core value of the app lies in its ability to visually integrate fence designs into the clients' yards, presented as a means to optimize sales experiences. Understanding this context is vital for effective communication and participation in related discussions in the business and technology fields.
Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication
- "What's the problem?" - A common way to ask someone to describe an issue or challenge.
- "Can you hear me?" - Useful when checking audio in conversations, especially in virtual settings.
- "What's the revenue?" - A direct query to understand business figures, often used in financial discussions.
- "How do you get leads?" - Essential when discussing sales strategies and customer acquisition.
- "Cancel anytime" - A friendly reminder often related to subscription services, indicating flexibility for users.
Step-by-step Shadowing Guide
To enhance your English speaking practice with the content from this video, follow this shadowing technique to improve your pronunciation and fluency:
- Listen Actively: Start by listening to the video without any distractions. Focus on the tone and emotion behind the speaker’s words.
- Pause and Repeat: Play small segments of dialogue. Use the pause button frequently to repeat what you hear. This helps reinforce correct pronunciation and intonation.
- Imitate Expressions: Don’t just mimic the words; pay attention to how the speaker expresses feelings. This will add naturalness to your speech.
- Record Yourself: Use voice recording apps to capture your shadowing attempts. Compare your recordings to the original speech to identify areas for improvement.
- Practice Regularly: Consistency is key. Allocate time each day for your shadow speech sessions, focusing on one phrase or dialogue at a time to slowly build mastery.
By implementing this effective shadowing technique using phrases from the transcript, you will gradually improve English pronunciation and bolster your confidence in speaking. Embrace this practice, and utilize resources like shadowspeaks to take your English communication skills to the next level.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.